


The Baker and the Forest Goddess

by midnighteverlark



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Bakery, F/M, Fantasy, Legends, Magic, Polytheism, Temple, goddess!katniss, mortal!Peeta
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-02-13 07:57:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2143131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnighteverlark/pseuds/midnighteverlark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The forest goddess Katniss captured the heart of the mortal boy, Peeta, when they were just children. But after the death of Katniss's father, she turns cold, becoming a vengeful, fearsome deity. Peeta, who has loved and worshipped Katniss all his life, may just be able to tame her wild heart, but there are consequences to loving an immortal. Goddess!Katniss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wrote this a while ago and decided, what the heck, I'm swamped with too much to keep track of anyway, what's one more? So I posted it. I might end up taking it down, re-writing it and THEN posting again, for real that time, but who knows. We'll see.
> 
> Let me know if you'd like me to continue (faster).
> 
> Enjoy, my lovelies!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cover made for me by the lovely otrascosasseries over on Tumblr. :)

* * *

 

In the court of gods and goddesses, the sisters were low in the order. They ranked below even the goddess of vanity, though above her partner – the god of drunkenness and regret. The sisters were two halves of the same coin, having different fathers but the same birthmother. Violet, goddess of springtime and healing and, more recently, sorrow, was the lawful wife of Alder. The god of the hunt was he, and he looked it – tall and dark and lean, body as slim and powerful as the bow he wielded, he tracked and trapped every monster that roamed the lands. He was respected and loved by all the animals of the forest, as well as those humans who dwelt in it. Often in mean winters, he could be seen travelling through the wood, beloved hounds at his side, to fill a woodsman's fuel box or nudge a lost traveler in the right direction. And he carried his infant daughter with him, wrapping her tiny form in the softest pelts, the warmest of swan down, the snuggest of ivory doe leather. He fed his babe with nectar-sweetened wolf milk, funneled through a wax-sealed cloth woven by the sisters of cotton themselves, the dryads Bonnie and Twill. Only the best for the infant goddess.

As the months passed and the seasons slipped a full two cycles, she grew from a little bundle of large eyes and dark, feathery hair into a strong-willed toddler. The watery blue-gray of her eyes hardened into a bright silver, like shimmering bands of moonlight and mist. The shock of fuzzy duckling down on her head grew and thickened until Alder took to gathering it into two stubby little pigtails. She travelled with her father often, toddling at his side with a light, meandering step. He clothed her in a dress of raven feathers and cattail fluff in the Autumn and in the whole pelt of a wolf pup, complete with ears and teeth, in the winter. She passed a comical figure, gamboling in the snow, wrapped in the thick, tan-gray fur of a young wolf, the neck slit to make a hole for her wide-eyed face. The empty head of the wolf, eyes replaced with glass balls, perched atop her dark locks, ears flopping as she ran. The paws brushed at her ankles, dangling from the fur coat on either side of a limp tail.

The little goddess's fearlessness and friendly inclinations won her many admirers, mortal and immortal alike, even at her young age. Within three years of her birth, she gained a faithful following of woods-dwelling humans. Small, humble shrines and alters were erected in clearings and near cold, clear pools. Woodsmen burned offerings of honey-drizzled rabbit meat and draped her shrines in strings of bright berries and nuts, on which the birds of the wood feasted. Her powers had not yet become clear, but small, fleet-footed forest animals and bright-eyed birds followed her wherever she went, bringing her small pretty things and adding the warmth of their little bodies to her blankets when she slept. During the day, she graced her small number of tiny temples with her presence, Alder guiding her by the hand, and interacted freely with her worshippers. Everyone who met her loved her immediately, drawn in by her big, blinking, almond-shaped eyes, which shimmered like frost when she laughed and snapped like polished steel when she scowled.

The young goddess imitated the habits of her father, inclining her head and graciously accepting gifts with a piping, bird-like, "Much appreciated!" People laughed at her funny grown-up ways, coming from such a small figure and trilling voice, and she laughed with them. Her father taught her how to craft blessings out of polished stones, acorns, feathers and bits of leather. She wove bracelets from twine and supple reeds, and these she bestowed freely, handing them out with a giggle or a hop. As the young goddess grew, so her following grew as well, swelling in her wake as she travelled faithfully at the side of her father. Her shrines began appearing in villages as well as forests, small huts woven of aspen saplings and rushes that always sat near the larger, grander shrines of live pines and stretched deerskin that were dedicated to Alder. Children especially liked to enter the miniature shrines, crawling through the low doors on hands and knees to leave trinkets and toys, while their parents prayed to Alder for a good hunt or fine pelts. These were the children of trappers and migrants, dark little things with often hollow bellies. One among them was quite different. A sturdy, tow-headed child, he toddled to his town's worship place on fat, unsteady legs, an offering of bright weed-flowers clutched in his fist. But that is a story for a later time.

This first sister, daughter of Violet and Alder, was born in the very early spring, arriving with the birds. When Violet first saw her husband and daughter together, Alder had just returned from his yearly journey into the cold mountains, and he still wore his winter coat of elk skin, the hood still antlered, and his winter beard brushed the newborn's cheek as he cradled her. The family had met in the forest, just beside a deep, clean pool, and as Violet sat cross-legged on a carpet of sweet clover, babe held to her chest, Alder fried the tubers that grew in the black mud of the pond bed. He wove the stalks and three-petaled flowers into a crown for his daughter, and as soon as the circlet lighted on her tiny brow, she was named. Arrow-shaped leaves, dense, spindly stalks, pale petals with dabs of blood-red at their base and the nourishing, sweet-starchy tubers. Simple. Hardy. Beautiful, if one looked past the first impression of rough practicality.

Katniss, child goddess of Violet and Alder, spent her winters travelling with her father, but in the warmer months, she stayed by the side of her mother. Violet carried her daughter in the crook of her arm, and when she grew larger, the wolf skin was traded for a dress of patterned cotton, as if Katniss was a human apothecary's daughter. Violet herself lived and worked from a cleanly cottage at the edge of her husband's largest forest. It was an airy home, all river rock walls and quilts stitched from strong thread and patches of fabric given by grateful visitors. It was a place of magic. Human and god alike sought out the cottage, carrying ill sons or bleeding wives, cradling broken bones or cupping singed flesh. Animals limped to the door, knowing the kind mistress within would attend to them, and magical creatures begged boons of her in squawks and croaks and barks. Even monsters were known to seek Violet's healing hands, though they stopped a respectful stone's throw from the front door. Little Katniss stood beside her mother at the scarred kitchen table while Violet mixed herbs, holy water, phoenix feathers, beetles, blossoms, locks of her own hair and powdered dragon claw. Tonics, salves and broths lined the shelves and always, it seemed, there was an injured soul resting on the cot in the corner.

In the springtime, Violet ventured into the world to gently thaw winter's grip and scatter snowdrops and cherry blossoms from her palms, and Katniss went with her. It was on one of these journeys, travelling on the backs of pale-furred elk, as was Violet's preference, that little Katniss's powers first showed themselves. Mother and daughter stood inside the doorway of a small, general temple, where offerings to various gods smoldered in the embers of the fire pit and ribbons of incense billowed and curled. Violet had summoned a light rain to nurture the tender blooms and delicate green growth of the new year, and now they stopped to rest and partake in the dark cherry cordial and hot grain stew that had been left on the altar for passing deities. Katniss pressed close to her mother's side while she lifted spoons of gravy and rice to her lips, made unsure by the unfamiliar setting. While Violet held her daughter tight, nuzzling her cheek like a doe nuzzles the cheek of her fawn, two soggy travelers approached the temple. They had only two bags between them, clutched under their cloaks to shield them from the cool drizzle.

As they approached, the young goddess's eyes brightened to an alert silver, glimmering as the tang of blood wafted past her. She glanced at her mother, whose hands were already moving in a symbol of protection. She had noticed it, too. The travelers passed through the doorway with heads inclined to the alter respectfully, taking no notice in the two goddesses. To any mortal eye, Violet and Katniss were nothing more than a pair of temple cats, lapping at bowls of hot grain with pink tongues.

The smaller of the two travelers lowered herself stiffly to the floor, stretching out one leg in front of her with a sigh. Katniss then saw that she had been carrying not a sack, but a young child, all big eyes and pudgy fingers. She carried a floppy stuffed toy – the rough likeness of a bear, with button eyes and a round belly. The mother with the injured leg leaned against her husband, and, quietly, Violet stood and went to them. Under the guise of a golden-furred tabby, she settled herself on the woman's lap, draping her tail over the bandage-bound leg. Thinking nothing of it, the woman began to stroke Violet's silky fur, watching her husband strike flint and steel until a thin spray of sparks rained over a fresh cone of incense. Katniss, meanwhile, sauntered over, charcoal-black fur bristling, pine-tree-tail wobbling behind her. She crept up to the child, who was no older than Katniss herself, and abruptly shed her cloak of illusion. Appearing now in her true form, Katniss went to the small girl and invited her to play.

They chased about the temple, hopping and skipping as children do, and all the while the human mother looked on with a bemused frown, thinking that there was  _something_  strange about the little village girl with two black braids and the cotton dress. Katniss then scooped up the stuffed toy, hugging it to her chest, and when she set it down again, it was a flesh-and-blood bear cub, with a wet, snuffling nose and brown-black fur. The little girl shrieked and ran to her mother, and Violet lifted her head at the noise. She jumped from the mother's lap, the injured leg now fully healed by the simple vibrations of her feline purrs, and in mid-air burst into a whirlwind of dew and wild rose petals. When she once again solidified, she was a woman, tall and regal, her pale gold hair arranged under a crown of slender birch twigs green with unfurling spring leaves. Her dress rippled like early morning sun through forest branches, gold-green and stitched with the intricate, intertwining patterns of lacy-winged butterflies and small birds.

The human mother and father threw themselves to the ground, hands pressed to the cold stone floor, and their frightened child copied them. Violet walked calmly to them, dissolved the bandages on the woman's leg with a flick of her hand, and quietly filled their bags with poultices and tins of tea leaves. She then turned to Katniss, who had sat down on the floor, hugging her newly-created bear cub round the neck, sniffing gently. Violet lifted Katniss into her arms, bear and all, dabbing at her tears with one shimmering sleeve. She bid the travelers rise and quickly explained: Katniss hadn't meant to scare the child; she was simply creating a play mate. She probably hadn't even meant to do it. But it made little difference – the human child shrunk from both the bear and its maker, and Katniss drooped. She buried her face in its thick ruff until her mother blew them away in a warm, puffing breeze.

When they re-formed, outside where their elk waited for them, Violet lifted herself onto the back of the creature and set Katniss in front of her. Katniss hugged her bear cub, remaining silent, for many miles. It was the first time anyone had been afraid of her, and she didn't like the feeling. At last, she called down a pair of squeaking chickadees from the branches. These she placed in a loosely-woven cage of willow twigs, and instructed a nearby doe to carry them to the little girl at the temple as a present. Violet watched all this with a quiet smile, observing her child attempting to make right what she had unintentionally done wrong.

Being a child, Katniss quickly forgot about the incident altogether, but word began to spread about the little goddess whom animals obeyed as their princess. The small girl, the name of whom Katniss never even learned, grew up with two feathered friends always at her side. The chickadees loyally brought her seeds and berries, perched in her little hands and sang to her in their high, warbling voices all through her childhood. Only when she was a young woman betrothed to the blacksmith's son did the girl's chickadees die of old age, and she wept bitterly at the loss. But every year, the descendants of those two chickadees would build a nest outside the girl's window, and she always placed a bowl of sunflower seeds on her sill. By that time, her village had already taken to calling her "Seeder," after her pockets full of food for her beloved chickadees. But that is another story.

* * *

Katniss was three years old when Violet's belly began to grow. It was Autumn, golden and scarlet in the woods, and Alder was on the brink of leaving for the winter. He knelt before his wife, cloaked in dappled fur and strong in his waxing season of praise and prayer. His hands settled on either side of the small, unobtrusive bulge beneath Violet's skirt, and he pressed a kiss to it as he would the crown of little Katniss's head. Murmured words of love and support nourished the sleeping babe within, and the tiny presence moved in its nest of fluid and flesh. But Violet didn't smile to feel the fluttering. Her eyes tightened, and Alder looked up to see a small frown on her face.

"Don't worry," he said, placing a quick kiss on her lips. "We'll be back before he arrives."

"He?" Violet mused, smoothing a hand over the bump.

"Or she," Alder conceded. Then he slipped his bow and quiver over one shoulder, reaching for Katniss with the other hand. "Ready, my princess?"

"Ready, Papa," she piped, folding her little hand entirely into his big one.

Violet watched them vanish into the forest, hounds bounding ahead of them with exuberant bays, and when they were out of sight she retreated into her cabin, folded her hands and prayed to Finnick, god of the seas and of fertility, that the child was of Alder. But for all her fervent prayers, she still travelled the ten miles to the nearest village almost weekly to lie with her human lover, the gentle baker with three young sons and a wife of his own. He, too, rejoiced at the swelling of Violet's stomach, and in the winter months, while Alder and Katniss moved through the wildwood bestowing gifts, he held Violet close. Good as he was, he swore he would love the babe, whether it be his or Alder's, and if the need be, protect it from her husband's wrath.

Fortunately, the baker's protection wasn't needed. Spring came and Alder returned, a now four-year-old Katniss in tow, and summer blazed by the time Violet gave birth. If Alder knew of his wife's betrayal, he pretended not to. But to those who knew him well, the babe, a girl, was undoubtedly that of Emmett Mellark, Violet's long-time human lover. However, the infant demi-goddess could be mistaken for the child of Violet and Alder. She favored her mother, with coloring pale as cherry blossoms and fine, sweet features, like those of a noblewoman: a small, round nose, full cheekbones and a tapering jaw that ended in a stubborn little chin. Of course, none of this became apparent until she grew out of her baby roundness. At the time of her birth, it was known only that she was a wrinkled, red, squalling thing. It wasn't until she grew into a young lady that it became obvious that she was not the product of two immortals, but the child of one goddess and one common baker.

Katniss fell in love with her younger sister at once. She had been dozing in the forest during the birth, being too young to witness such a thing, and early in the morning, one of Violet's does woke her and carried her back to the cabin. There was Violet, slumped on her bed, surrounded by all the females of her deer herd, plus Alder's most favored hunting hound at her feet. There was Sae, the midwife – an ancient, gray, wise goddess, yet saucy and gay in her age – attending to her. Alder stood at the other side of the bed, staring down at the bundle in his arms with an expression so intense it could have been pain. Katniss bounced across the room, navigating easily around the cloven hoofs and velvet ears, and stood on the bed to peer at the bundle. Alder helped her sit down next to her sleeping mother and eased the baby girl into her big sister's arms. Katniss studied her quietly, noting the babe's duck-fuzz-hair and tiny, fisted hands. Quite by accident, one little hand latched onto Katniss's pinky. The infant squinted for a moment, slate-gray eyes meeting silver ones before it opened a pink mouth, like a kitten's, and yawned. Slowly, a smile took possession of Katniss's face, and she cradled the babe more closely to her.

"What'll we call her?" she asked her father.

In answer, he held out a blossom plucked from a bush beyond the open window. Pale yellow and delicate as a moth's wing, it fluttered in the slight breeze.

"Primrose," Katniss recalled, and then, deciding it was a mouthful, "Prim."

The two little girls grew up quite oblivious to their differences. Even when Primrose's eyes changed from infant-gray to a bright blue – bluer than Violet's, bluer than the bluest feather of a mountain blue jay, as blue as Emmett's – no one seemed the wiser. Except for Violet. Some time after Primrose's birth, she sent a message with her most trusted doe to the nearest village. A clandestine meeting was arranged. Katniss witnessed the encounter, thinking nothing of it, thrilled to show off her baby sister to this broad, golden stranger. She played in the garden, chasing butterflies in the twilight, while Emmett wept over his half-blood baby girl and Violet quickly explained her husband's turning a blind eye.

Three seasons passed, it was Spring again, and Katniss and Alder returned once more from their yearly travels to find Primrose a chubby baby, almost a year old, with a shock of white-gold hair. It was at this time that Lady Fate cast her hand.

Violet and Alder chased Katniss out of the house to play while Primrose napped. Irked, Katniss tossed her braids over her shoulder and stomped down the path, away from the cottage. She called to her bear, who was now quite large enough to ride, and used a stump as a stepping stool to clamber upon his back.

"Come on, Dandel," she grumped, pointing him across the field, toward the village. "We'll have some fun by ourselves."

The little bear traversed the ten miles easily, being far from an ordinary grizzly, and Katniss drew a hood of fluttering amethyst over herself to mask her features. It covered her stardust-silver eyes and distinctive dress cardinal feathers. The dress had been a birthday present to her from Alder. Mimicking the red and black coloring of the winter bird, it fell over her narrow shoulders, the sleeves tapering to wing shapes at her elbow. The bodice and skirt were made entirely of cranberry-red feathers, stitched together with Violet's thinnest thread, and the back laced up with red-gray ribbons, like the back of a cardinal. Underneath it all, a smoky slip of spider-silk protected her skin from the itching quality of the feathers. She looked for all the world like a little bird, dressed shoulders to knees in feathers and crowned with a circlet of her namesake blossoms. But the purple cloak hid all that, making Katniss appear much like the daughter of a rich merchant. Or, so she thought. The bear rather ruined that image, but Katniss didn't think of that. Indeed, she thought herself quite clever for the disguise, and went about grinning under her hood, none the wiser for the stares she received.

After some time of riding about the village, Dandelion grew tired, and Katniss directed him to the shrine she shared with her father at the village center. There they stopped, Dandel taking guard by the door, and Katniss slipped inside her father's shrine, where a family had stopped to pay their offerings. For a moment, Katniss thought she recognized one of them – broad, golden and gentle in his movements, he seemed familiar. It didn't take long for her to dismiss this, however, and move straight to the crowd of priests and worshippers gathered in front of the altar. The family had evidently arrived late, for they hovered back by the door while Katniss plunked herself down right at the front of the crowd.

She waited patiently while the priests droned about Alder's generosity, familiar, by now, with the pattern of the ceremony. Sometime in the middle, she grew quite warm, and shrugged off the cloak. Worshippers began nudging one another. They saw the little girl, the very likeness of the painting of Alder on the opposite wall. They saw her feather dress and they saw the young bear at the door, and they began to make the connection.

Fortunately, before anyone could say anything, a distraction presented itself. A young boy, no older than Katniss, had been hopping from one foot to the other in front of the door for quite some time, eyeing the bear. It was only just then that he gathered the courage to sprint past it, leaping into the arms of his father with a loud squeak. The priests paused and heads turned, and the little boy hid his face in his father's shirt collar. Chuckles bubbled up from the crowd, and then things became quiet again.

It came time for the singing.

The head priest asked if one of the worshippers would like to lead the first song. Of course, little Katniss flung her hand in the air. She knew all her father's songs. The priest, noticing her for the first time, raised his eyebrows upon recognition but said nothing. He simply fetched a stool – for no child goddess should have to stand on the ground – and gave her a hand as she clambered up onto it. Without hesitating, Katniss opened her mouth and began to sing a song of her own making. The notes and words conjured up hidden glades and warm furs, dark pines and the light step of a doe. For such a young thing, her voice was melodic, sweet and high, like the trill of a meadowlark. Indeed, the birds outside fell silent and cocked their heads, wondering,  _What is this strange creature that dresses in birds' feathers, sings birds' songs and yet is not a bird?_

But the birds weren't the only things that Katniss enchanted that day. The small boy, from his father's arms, watched Katniss with large, blue eyes, unable or unwilling to look away. He didn't know that she was a goddess. He knew only that she was unlike anyone he had seen before, with her red feather dress, long, dark braids and a voice far sweeter than any icing his father could possibly mix. When the song ended, much to his disappointment, the birds outside started up again, and he looked at them in wonder. Had they been listening to the pretty little girl, too?

It only occurred to him afterwards, when the little girl climbed atop a young bear and two priests came forward, heads bent respectfully, to present her with humble gifts from the village, that the little girl might be more than just a little girl.

Emmett saw the direction of his young son's gaze. "See that little girl?" he asked quietly.

Peeta's answering nod, at once solemn and awed, was all the answer he needed.

"I wanted to marry her mother, but she ran off with a hunter."

Peeta frowned, sticking out a plump lower lip. "A hunter? Why did she want a hunter if she could've had you?"

Emmett shook his head, slowly, watching the child goddess ride off on her lumbering bear. "Because when he sings… even the birds stop to listen."

Peeta turned his eyes towards the songbirds in the trees outside, which had now resumed their usual chirps. Some of them had gone to hover about the retreating figure of the little girl, circling her like protective shadows.

At last, he asked, "What's her name?"

"Katniss," Emmett replied simply, and then, seeing Peeta's confused look, "The little forest goddess."

Peeta considered this, then wriggled out of his father's grip, dodged out of Alder's temple and returned to the little sapling-hut beside it. Ducking inside, he knelt on the wool blanket that was spread on the ground, carefully poked a stick of incense into the belly of the tiny woodstove and whispered, "You have a really pretty voice, Miss Katniss."

From that day on, though Katniss all but forgot the incident, little Peeta returned to her temple with a handful of bright weed-flowers, half a cookie, a shiny coin or some other trinket, set it in Katniss's miniature offering bowl and prayed that she would come back and sing for them again.


	2. Chapter One

**Katniss**

The woods are darker now than they used to be.

Under my father's care, the woods were soft and light, dangerous in parts but only because of what they were. It was a place of sweet, cold streams and resinous pines and bright little flowers in the undergrowth. A wild place. A peaceful place.

But that was a long time ago.

Now the forest is harsher, laced with thick shadows and baleful, reaching branches. The trees have swelled to block the sky, limbs matting together. The streams that used to sparkle and sing now cut silently through the moss, dark and swift. Malevolent creatures inhabit the deepest corners, drawn by the constant half-twilight. The predators are more daring; the prey, more fearful. Few mortals venture in except seasoned hunters, trappers and travelers, and even they must carry talismans and keep a wary eye.

Not me, of course. The forest is mine. There is very little in these woods that poses a real threat to me. The malice that has permeated the forest comes from within my own being.

* * *

 I push off the bottom of the pool and surface with a shallow gasp. My whole body shakes, twitching convulsively with a deep chill, but I have it. The bow is back in my hands. Roots dig into my belly as I claw my way out of the bitter-cold water, and at last I'm lying on the moss, one hand fisting into frost-brittle reeds and the other locked around my bow. Well. My father's bow.

I cough and rise unsteadily, rivulets of pond water collecting around my feet. My numb fingers fumble over the folds of my clothing as I tug it down from a nearby branch. I took it off before diving into the water, thinking that it would be better to have clean, dry clothes to wear when I came back up. And perhaps that would have been a good idea, had I also stopped to consider the situation. But I didn't, and I'm paying for it now.

It wasn't smart, jumping into that pool. I knew as soon as I broke through the film of ice that I had made a mistake, but what could I do? It was my father's bow. I could not leave it at the bottom of some hexed puddle, even if it did turn out that the puddle in question was, in reality, a twenty-foot-deep pit of icy water and ancient ire. Some forgotten curse must lie on this place, old and yet potent, because the moment I was completely submerged my strength began to flag. It was as if my power was being funneled away, sucked from my veins and replaced with crystals of frost. My chest burned, though I had taken a breath mere seconds before. My mind fogged. The closer I drew to the bottom of the pool, the harder it was to move my limbs. I barely maintained my grip on the bow on the journey back to the surface, stiff and dazed as I was.

Now, as I cinch the last length of leather cord over my boot, I feel the curse finally begin to lose its grip on me. Whatever invisible poison that had lurked in the water slowly dissipates into the air and ground around me, hoarfrost hissing into existence wherever my skin touches earth. I am trembling, I realize, and not only from the marrow-deep chill; if I was mortal, the curse would have killed me. But I'm not, and it didn't. Even so, I came closer to Death today than I am necessarily comfortable with.

Prickles of pain shoot up my legs with every step, but I tell myself this is a good thing. At least the feeling is coming back. For the past few minutes I've felt like my limbs were made of wood. I resolve, as I lurch awkwardly away, not to tell Prim about any of this. She'd have my head if she knew I risked myself this way, though she knows as well as I that it will take more than that to end me. She doesn't need to know that I fell asleep in the branches while waiting for prey to wander by. She doesn't need to know that I let Father's bow slip from my fingers, and she certainly doesn't need to know that I foolishly went leaping after it into cursed waters.

Come to think of it, it was probably the selfsame curse that drew the bow out of my hand and down through the tangled branches, where it finally passed through the ice like it was nothing and sank to the very bottom, settling on a thick layer of other lost treasures. Lockets, jackets, teacups, paring knives, dolls. All mixed up with the algae-coated bones of others who tried to retrieve their prized possessions.

I pause at the edge of the clearing to pick up my game bag, re-counting the rabbits I shot this afternoon, and my gaze drifts to the deceptively calm surface of the pool. Already, ice is forming in the jagged hole I left, sealing the poisoned water inside.

I am too weak to leach the place of its curse now, and I don't even know if I'd be able to – some curses never truly fade, once they have been placed – so instead I plunge my consciousness into the surrounding soil, feeling out roots and dormant seeds and the burrows of small hibernating animals, their sleeping minds like little candles. I draw a wall of brambles from the cold earth without hesitating and seal the pool and its curse in a cocoon of thorns.

Immediately, the world begins to perform a slow, looping dance around my head. The dizziness tips me off-balance and I stumble into a trunk. Dandel, my faithful ursine companion, abandons whatever edibles he had been investigating and comes trudging through the undergrowth to push his muzzle against my ribs. He gives a grunt of concern.

"Cut it out," I mutter. "I'm fine." My fingers drag through the bristly fur near his snout as I wait for the nausea to fade. But it doesn't. I've spent too much energy.

Scowling, I brace one boot on the ragged edge of a stump and haul myself up onto Dandel's back. He begins to lumber away, his uneven gate doing nothing to soothe my building headache. I bury my hands into his soft undercoat and resign myself to a cold, damp journey. I haven't told the bear where to go, and I don't need to. He knows I have few options right now, and he's heading for the nearest one.

I sigh and rest my head in the space between the beast's shoulder blades. Hopefully there will be some good offerings at the temple.

* * *

 By the time I pass the first buildings of the village, frost has ceased to form under my boots, which I suppose is a good sign. I don't feel any warmer, though. I almost wish I hadn't left Dandel at the edge of the forest, but we would have attracted too much attention otherwise. Alone, I can easily pass for a poor woodsman's daughter, what with my worn travelling clothes and dirty cloak.

A simply clad young woman with a sheathed recurve bow over one shoulder nods at me as our paths cross. I recognize her as one of my own Huntresses and nod back, hoping she takes me for another worshiper. The last thing I want right now is a lot of attention, and that's exactly what I'm going to get if she identifies me. As we pass each other, the faint billow of her thoughts wafts by me. I tense, but I feel no spike of recognition from her, only the simmer of preoccupation and a few solitary ripples of anticipation. It's very nearly time for my mother to go out and coax warmth from the earth again, and everyone is glad of it. This winter was harsh. I used to join in their excitement. In fact, spring was my favorite season. Now, I can't let myself hope like I used to. At least, not until the season is well underway. I'm always afraid that this year will be the year my mother gives up again, retreating into herself and allowing winter to rage on and on with no end.

I shake those thoughts away and trek through the town center and on toward the north side of the village with renewed determination. My dizziness isn't nearly as bad now as it was beside that accursed pool, but I still feel as though I might just keel over if I don't sit down and rest. Thankfully for me, the temples, arranged in a rough circle, are already visible. I can just make out the very tips of their pointed roofs over the nearest shops and houses: Finnick's on the westmost end, then my mothers, mine, Thresh's, Boggs' and Gale's, with the general temple on the far east side of the semicircle.

My stomach clenches hopefully. It's a gray, frigid day; maybe someone will have left a bowl of hot stew on my offering plate, or a cup of mint tea. If nothing else, I know there'll be some sort of baked good. There almost always is. A crumbling muffin or a loaf of dense, fragrant bread or, occasionally, some sort of dessert. Today I'm hoping for something warm and filling, to give me the strength for the journey home. Cheese buns or a bit of meat pie would be ideal.

I trudge past Finnick's temple, which is draped in fish nets and decorated with shells that must have travelled hundreds of miles from the nearest shore, and then past my mother's, which is absolutely buzzing with energy. There are a couple weeks of winter left, but the mortals are already hard at work, making sure Violet's temple is as clean and festive as possible. At last, I hop up the wooden steps of my own temple, ducking past the wool blanket someone has tacked up over the door to keep the interior warm.

Inside, there's no one within view, but I detect two human minds in the very back of the structure, in the space partitioned off for the use of priests and priestesses. One is that half-mad priest with the fascination for the old ways. Seneca, that's his name. The other is Priest Aurelius, quietly humming a song of grief and respect for my father and uncle. I try not to listen. I've heard the song detailing the deaths of Alder and Hawthorne, gods of hunting and trapping respectively, more times than I care to recall. It tells all about how they tracked that damn mutt for weeks, how they chased it deep into a cave, and how there, cut off from the forest and their source of power, the mutt finally turned and attacked. It even describes the collapse of the cave. Combined with the mutt's venom and the injuries they sustained from battling it, the collapse was enough to crush the two gods. Six years have since passed and I still wake screaming for them to run.

I cross the length of the temple, tuning out the priests' prayers. I'm in no mood to listen to their complaints and blatant flattery. And anyway, Seneca's praise, though certainly enthusiastic, always seems a bit… off. He's devoted, I'll give him that. But there's this bitter, hectic edge to all the prayers he directs at me. It's unsettling. Once I even found myself actively trying to avoid him, until I realized that was ridiculous. I was the goddess. He was the human. He should fear me, not the other way around. That day, I summoned one of my wolf packs and set them after him as a warning. He still carries the scars of tooth marks on one arm. Something tells me he didn't quite get the message I was trying to convey, but, well, I've never been one to be overly chatty with my priests. I can always kill him if he steps over a line.

Already my limbs feel stronger, my legs carrying me with more surety. This temple is old – it was my father's before me – and the walls have absorbed centuries of praise and prayer. This place is as sustaining to me as a meal would be.

And, speaking of meals, my stomach is still twisting impatiently.

I slump onto the layers of fur between the fire pit and the altar. There are the usual offerings of pine needle bundles, small pelts, wooden carvings of plants and animals and other little presents from the townspeople. A few drawings, obviously done by young children, are stacked beside an assortment of nuts, slices of dried fruit and a couple of dainty hairpins. Ribbons of blue smoke rise from a little bowl of incense and mix with the steam from a platter of roasted squirrel rubbed with herbs. All in all, not a bad assortment.

But there isn't anything from the bakery.

Peeved, I sit back on my haunches and snatch up the squirrel. It's not what I wanted, but at least it's something.

I retreat a little ways, kicking the glossy pelt of a beaver along with me, and settle down to eat. I'm close enough to the fire to stay warm, but far enough from the center of the structure not to draw attention. From here I can survey my domain, as it were. I can inspect the temple, and all the things in it meant to appease or please me: the katniss blossoms and arrow-shaped leaves painted around the doorway; the smoldering fire pit scented with pine boughs and cloves; the pelts and blankets strewn about to soften the wood floor; the gleaming ritual knives hung on the wall by pegs. And, of course, the separate room only ever visited by my favorite priests and priestesses, curtained off for privacy and containing a luxurious sleeping pallet of furs and goose down stuffing and pine needle pillows. My "bedroom." Every temple has one. General temples, shared by all gods and goddesses, are equipped with several. I've used mine a couple of times, but I find I prefer sleeping in my own cabin, sharing quilts that my mother made with my little sister.

On a better day, the thought might be enough to soothe my bad mood, but not today. I'm still cold and wet under my tunic and, though the roasted squirrel is well-prepared, I'm craving something much different.

I check to make sure Aurelius and Seneca are still busy behind the deerskin partition, then sigh and haul myself to my feet. The now-empty platter falls onto the altar with a clatter and I turn to leave.

The flicker of a mortal mind stops me. It's not either of the priests – they're still in the back, muttering to one another. It's someone else. It's a mind, I realize with a small jolt, that I recognize.

While Seneca's prayers tend to repulse me, this boy's thoughts draw me in. His mind is unfailingly alight with hope and love and creativity. He's a bit like my sister in that respect. It makes me want to linger and soak it up like moss soaks up rain.

So I do. I jumped into a cursed pond and lost more than half of my strength today. And worse, I nearly lost my father's bow – I reach up automatically and run my hand over the oiled wood, ensuring that it's slung safely over my shoulder. If I want to stay and replenish my strength with this boy's prayers, there is no reason I shouldn't.

The wool blanket twitches and Peeta Mellark, son of Emmett Mellark, shoulders his way through the doorway, a basket in one hand and a flush on his cheeks. Silently, I back away from the altar and lean against one of the support beams. Bark catches at my clothing. Every other vertical support beam in the temple is the trunk of a live tree. My fingers seek out the rough bark, running along the jagged grooves, and the unhurried flow of the tree's soul pulses against my palm. It's a calming sensation, and I slide down the wall to sit and watch as the golden-haired mortal kneels beside the fire.

 _Sorry, sorry. I know I'm late._ The thought is directed at me, half-prayer and half-conversation. I draw my hood up over my face to hide the small smile on my lips. Peeta's prayers always seem to find the comfortable middle ground between respect and familiarity.

_Maybe this will make up for it, though._

He flicks off the napkin that had been covering the basket, and I lean forward as the smell reaches me. Dough and herbs and creamy goat cheese. Cheese buns!

The fire leaps up with my interest and Peeta grins. He's getting good at reading my signals. Maybe I'll have to replace Seneca with him. I tuck the thought into the back of my mind to reflect upon later.

He sets three of the buns on the platter that previously held roasted squirrel. Two remain in the basket. Sighing, he leans back and lifts one to his own lips. _Hope you don't mind if I eat, too. It was so busy today I didn't get a chance to eat lunch._

No, I don't mind. But there is a problem. I can't have those cheese buns unless I go over and pick them up off the altar, and then he'd recognize me for sure, and he'd probably say something that would give me away to the priests, and I'm still not particularly in the mood for any of that. I could shift into the form of a stray cat or a wolf or something and snag them that way, but changing form takes a lot of energy. I'm too weak right now.

That's it, then. I'm just going to have to grab the food and hope he takes the hint and stays quiet.

I'm halfway to the altar, my hood pulled up as far as it will go and my cloak wrapped tightly around me, when he looks up. His eyes meet mine, bright blue in the fading light that falls through the smoke hole. I'm about to lift a finger to my lips when he does something unexpected. He takes the last cheese bun from the basket and offers it to me.

"Want one?"

I blink, taken aback. "What?"

"Do you want one?" he repeats, and when I don't answer his smile slips a bit. "It's just – you look hungry."

"No. I mean, yes, I am, but that's –" I stumble over my words, suddenly unsure of myself.

I've been aware of Peeta for years, for a number of reasons, but we've never spoken before this. I first knew of his existence because he shared a father with my sister, though he doesn't know it, and because of his habit of praying to me though he has no real reason to. I am a huntress goddess of the forest, after all. There is little I could do to help a baker.

And, of course, there was the incident with the bread.

Now, just like then, I stand blinking at him, wondering what he sees when he looks at me. Does he see a cloaked goddess or a cold, tired woodsman's daughter?

Hesitantly, I step forward and accept the bun. "Thank you."

His smile returns. "Of course. Come, sit here. It's warmer than the corner."

I lower myself to sit next to him and a shudder sweeps through me. From here, the gentle waves and eddies of his mind are much more immediate than they are from a distance. I can feel the bubbles of curiosity and the swell of concern as he watches me sink my teeth into the cheese bun, and underneath that, a constant hum of – admiration? Affection? Esteem? I don't know. It's a somewhat alien sensation, and I can't work out what triggered it. Maybe he's thinking of a sweetheart of his.

Before I can figure it out, he says, "What's your name?"

"Kat-" I swallow the rest of the word, leaving it clipped and strange. He asked for my name. That means he doesn't recognize me, after all. And I think I'd like to keep it that way for a while longer. Whenever any mortal discovers who I am, be they a human or a demigod or some other sort of creature, they fear me – as well they should. But it gets a bit lonesome after a while when nearly everyone you talk to has their hackles up, scared of saying one wrong word and inciting your wrath. It can be amusing, watching them squirm, but I do not want that now. I do not want Peeta Mellark to be afraid of me.

"Kat?" he repeats when I don't go on.

I nod dumbly.

"I'm Peeta," he says, and offers a hand.

We shake hands. It's almost comical how his large, warm hand almost completely enfolds my small, dark, cold one.

His eyes sweep over me once, taking in my cloak, my bow and quiver, the boots so old and well-used the leather has molded to the shape of my feet. "You're a Huntress?"

I feel my lips quirk up and force my expression to return to neutral. "That's right."

"I don't think I've met you before. Do you live close?"

"I live with my sister a couple miles from here." Not a lie.

His brows lift and curiosity emanates from him like a gentle breeze. "That close? How haven't I seen you before?"

"I travel a lot." Also not a lie.

I finish off the bun in my hands and start eyeing the ones on the altar.

His eyes are still on me, and when I turn to him they crinkle with a smile. "What do you do?" he persists. "For a living." Absently, he reaches out and begins to straighten the assorted items on my offering table, arranging them in an almost artful manner.

I roll my answer on my tongue for a moment, contemplating how much to say. I settle on, "My mother and sister are healers." His sister, too, I think. Strange that we could be related, if in an indirect way.

"And your father?" he inquires, not realizing his mistake until he sees my face fall. "Oh. I'm sorry."

I nod once and lower my head, shielding my face with my hood once more. The fire falters with the dip in my mood and Peeta watches the popping embers. I offer my own prayer to Lady Fate, hoping he won't make the connection. Then I go back to staring at the cheese buns.

"Oh, have it," he says abruptly, plucking another bun off the offering plate and holding it out to me. "I don't think she'll mind too much."

It takes me a moment to realize that "she" is me – Katniss the goddess, that is, not Kat the Huntress.

 _You don't do you?_ he thinks to me, even as he picks up one of my hands and presses the cheese bun into my palm. "Eat," he says aloud. "Please."

There it is again – that soft swell of concern, in his eyes and in his mind. I don't understand. I'm just the thin, dirty daughter of a dead woodsman, as far as he knows. What does it matter to him that I'm hungry?

I pick at the cooling bread with my fingernails, catch his gaze with my own and ask, "Why do you care? And why risk angering a goddess? Aren't you afraid of her?"

"I don't think she'll mind," he repeats, but he sounds less certain.

"But aren't – isn't Katniss supposed to be cruel and vengeful?"

"Oh, I don't know," he replies thoughtfully. "I don't think she's… Well, I don't think Katniss is like people say. I don't think she's cruel. Just… tired. And grieving. It couldn't have been easy to lose Alder. I mean, it wasn't easy for anyone, but he was her _father_."

I wince at the mention of his name, but the throb of pain is quickly drowned out by a growing tenderness for this boy who seems to know me so well. Who understands that I don't mean to be a harsh, often hostile deity. Who prays to me like I'm a friend, not a bringer of death and destruction.

I wait, holding his gaze. He hasn't answered my question.

After a few moments he says, "You look hungry. That's all. I'd like to help if I can."

I bristle and the tenderness vanishes in an instant. "I don't need charity."

There are groans and rustles from outside as the trees around the temple quiver, reacting to my sudden aggression, and I will them to stay still. They quiet, but their simple, unhurried tree-minds remain unsettled.

"Of course you don't," Peeta agrees quickly, but his cheeks color with chagrin. "I'm sorry, that…" He trails off, self-doubt winding in ribbons around his thoughts.

I take a slow breath. "It's okay. Just a bad day is all."

His eyes flick up. "What happened?"

"I –" I stall, not quite ready to reveal my own stupidity. Then again, what does it matter? Even if he tells someone, no one will know he's talking about _me_. "I jumped into a cursed pond," I say in a rush, and then I let out a nervous laugh. "Um, silly, I know."

I peer at him around the edge of my hood, expecting him to laugh with me, but his eyes are big and round, almost like a child's. "A cursed pond?" he repeats.

"I didn't know it was cursed when I jumped in," I say crossly.

"And, what, you were just… going for a swim? In wintertime?"

"My father's bow fell in." My hand returns to the curve of wood over my shoulder, stroking it and plucking at the taut string. When I speak again my voice is soft. Aurelius's song, Peeta's question, the bow… Everything reminds me of my father today. "I couldn't just leave it."

"Cursed," Peeta repeats, a quiet sort of awe hanging about him. "And you're all right?"

"Cold and wet," I huff. "But, yes. I'll live."

My fingers squeeze and I remember I'm still holding the cheese bun. It's gone within a few moments.

He starts mumbling, and when I look I find that he has shifted his weight onto his knees, bowing his head respectfully as he prays. To me. For me.

His words are only half-intelligible, but I understand each and every one of them. The message is meant for my ears, after all. "Great Huntress, help her," he's saying, and for reasons unknown to me, my title on his lips sends a gentle shiver through me. "Don't let her be cursed." He pauses, then starts in on one of the simple, structured prayers that everyone in this village knows. I've heard it hundreds of times in the past few months alone, so usually I would tune it out, but now I find myself listening.

Sleepy, far-off rolls of thunder mix with his voice as he recites the rhyme.

"Hear me, Goddess, dark and keen,

Huntress of the wildwood,

Of rivers swift and forests green.

Watch us, guard us, if you would."

I take the opportunity to look at him while his eyes are closed. The golden-orange light of the fire washes over his face, illuminating long, pale lashes and a sprinkle of freckles across his nose. He's handsome.

 _For a mortal,_ I silently amend, vexed at myself for staring for so long. Handsome for a mortal. Maybe he has god blood somewhere in his ancestry. A demigod grandfather, perhaps.

Now he's murmuring the part about guiding travelers and helping arrows find their marks, and it's all I can do not to snuggle up to him and take a nap. It's an odd, misplaced instinct, doubtless born of my current state of weariness. The food helped, of course, but this is what I really needed. Praise. Just as humans need sustenance to survive, gods need worship.

He's nearing the end of the rhyme. I'm almost disappointed. I liked listening to him recite it. I liked watching his mouth move, shaping the words.

 _I want to suck those prayers off the tip of his tongue._ My cheeks heat as soon as the thought enters my mind and I shift uncomfortably, as if he could hear it. You can't really blame me, though. Spring is coming fast. The forest is just beginning to wake up, and once it's awake, mating season will be in full swing. Already, it's starting to affect me.

Outside, another growl of thunder rolls over the sky. The quality of light coming through the smoke hole has shifted, I realize. Night is coming, and rain with it. In my mind I see Prim, standing at a window with one slender hand tangled in the curtains, worrying for me. If I'm going to reach her before midnight, I have to leave.

I scramble to my feet, deftly checking over my bow, quiver and game bag. Peeta looks up at me, those blue eyes sending a twinge of warmth through my lower belly. _Damn mating season hasn't even started yet,_ I silently grumble to myself, tucking my braid back under my cloak.

"You're leaving?" he says. I try to ignore the dismay that flits through his mind.

"I need to get home or my sister will worry," I explain, already halfway to the door. The wool blanket ripples and snaps in the strengthening wind, letting bursts of cold air and the smell of rain.

"But it's going to storm." His left hand tightens over his knee, rubbing as if it pains him. I don't need my mother's power to tell it's an old wound. "I can tell."

"I'll be fine." I lift the blanket, then remember to stop and say, "Thank you. For the food. And for talking to me."

His lips quirk in puzzlement. "You're welcome for the food. And you don't have to thank me for a conversation, you know."

"Not many people talk to me." I try to smile, to turn it into a joke, but it comes out halfhearted. I don't mind, really. I prefer solitude. I could care less that I intimidate mortals into silence. Usually. But, like I said, at times it does make one a bit lonesome. This is one of those times.

He watches me for a second, then offers one more of his easy smiles and says, "Well, they should." Then he braces a hand on the altar and pushes himself up. "I'll walk you home."

"Oh," I say in surprise. "No. Thank you, but no."

"Come on," he cajoles. "At least let me see you to the gate. Someone who walked into a curse shouldn't have to travel home alone."

"Jumped in," I remind him. He chuckles.

I don't need help. But he's so adamant, I allow him to escort me to the other end of the village, where the road curves off into the trees. He's limping, now. It's subtle, and he's obviously trying to hide it, but I notice. Kneeling to pray for minutes at a time couldn't have been good for that old injury of his. Maybe I can ask Prim if she can do something about it.

The rain begins to fall, one drop at a time, but it doesn't thicken into a real downpour until we pass the gate. I stop. I don't want him to see Dandel and figure me out if we go any further. "Thank you," I say firmly. "I can make it the rest of the way."

He's conflicted – I can feel it in the cloud of his thoughts – but he bobs his head and steps back. "All right."

I turn to leave, glancing up at the purple clouds and hoping Prim isn't too frantic, but he calls after me. "Will you come to the temple again?"

"Yes." Of course I will. It's the closest to home, and, if I'm being honest, it's my favorite. The temples in the richer areas of the human world may be larger, more grandiose, but I never had a taste for them. Wood and squirrel meat suit me better than marble and feasts. My father felt the same way. This was his favorite village, too.

"Good, hardworking people," he used to tell me. "Good neighbors. Good worshippers. That's why your mother and I settled down here, you know." And then he'd tweak my nose and I'd giggle.

I'm brought back to the present when Peeta lifts a hand and says, "Goodbye, then, Kat."

I think I like the way that nickname sounds on his lips.

"Goodbye, Peeta."

He makes his way back into town, flipping up the collar of his much-patched coat against the rain, and I linger a moment to watch him. It's remarkable how much he's changed since that day. And it's remarkable how much he hasn't.

It was raining then, too.

It was during the worst time. The mutt had killed my father and uncle months ago, and spring should have been thawing winter's grip. But my mother was weak with grief, locked in some hellish world of her own. She had neither the strength nor the inclination to go out and scatter warmth and flowers from her palms. Even when Boggs, god of winter and war, purposefully loosened winter's grip, she wouldn't bring the new season.

She wouldn't bring any food, either. She wouldn't do anything. She just sat on the edge of her bed, wrapped in a quilt, staring at a wall like it might speak to her. Prim and I begged and wept and screamed, but nothing roused her. The food in the cupboards ran out, and there was nothing to glean from the ice-crusted garden. The animals were all hidden away in their burrows. The woods were dormant. We were starving.

After three days of eating nothing but some dried mint leaves I found in the back of a cupboard, Prim collapsed. That was what decided it for me. I helped her to a chair, put a cup of mint tea in front of her and told her to stay put. Then I walked out of the door and pointed my feet toward the village. Dandel remained in his den under our porch, too cold and tired to carry me.

I had thought to collect offerings from our temples – my mother's, my father's, my own small one. Even my uncle's. Though technically Gale Hawthorneson had inherited his father's temples along with his powers, I was desperate. I was sure Gale would understand. After all, he had fought the mutt alongside me. Together we battled the beast that had slain our fathers, and together we defeated it. Had it not already been mortally wounded from its battle with Alder and Hawthorne, we never would have been able to kill it. But Lady Fate smiled on us. My arrow brought the mutt down and Gale's knife slit its throat. Moments afterward, we took on our fathers' powers. The forest would have died completely if we hadn't, and us with it.

I stumbled from temple to temple, starting with my own. At the time it was a small, lopsided structure, mainly used by children. It had been constructed just a few years before, when I was becoming known as the child-goddess of the forest. I was a child-goddess no longer, now that I wielded my father's powers. I was a full-fledged goddess of the hunt. And yet, that didn't seem to help me any. I was still new and unsure of the powers I had inherited. I didn't know how to use them. Perhaps if I had known, I wouldn't have been travelling from temple to temple, searching frantically for food.

The miniature altar in my little temple was empty except for a single, inedible gift – I don't even remember what it was, now. Just that it wasn't food. So I moved on to my parents' temples. I even tried Hawthorne's – Gale's, really. Every offering plate was scrupulously, heartlessly bare. Now I suppose the villagers, cold and miserable and hungry themselves, had little to spare. They probably resented us for allowing the unnatural winter to continue. Now I think I understand. But then, all I knew was that my last hope had vanished in a puff of incense smoke.

I wandered aimlessly for a while, soaking myself in the half-rain, half-snow that was falling. Then I saw the village center. I saw the warm glow of the merchant shop windows and a tiny spark of hope returned. Surely, _surely_ someone would give me something if I told them who I was. But I was so weak and had so little power left that I couldn't make myself appear as anything other than a mud-smeared beggar girl, and everyone I appealed to ignored me. Everyone except Noora Mellark, the baker's wife, who chased me away from the bakery windows shrieking about feral children leaving streaks on the glass.

I ended up behind the bakery, where I tripped and fell and didn't get up again. I remember staring up at the frozen branches of an apple tree and offering a weak prayer to Death to make my end painless.

There was shouting from inside the bakery, and then the crack of skin on skin and a cry of pain. I managed to turn my head enough to see the baker's youngest son stumble out the back door, clutching two blackened loaves, while his mother hollered that no one was going to buy burned bread. I watched him with bleary eyes as he sniffed and pawed at the quickly developing bruise on his cheek.

Then his mother slammed the door shut and he lurched toward me. Confused and wary, I tried to stand, but I could only prop myself against the trunk of the apple tree stare at him with apprehension. He shoved both loaves at me, hissing, "Here, take them, take them," and then he was gone, lifting the lid of a compost bin and slamming it shut again needlessly. With one last flicker of his blue eyes, he was back inside the bakery, and I was using the tree to haul myself to my feet.

I didn't know if he had recognized me for who I was or not, and at the moment, I didn't care. I shuffled home as quickly as I could, cradling the bread under my shirt to keep it dry and weeping with relief.

It seemed that Death wasn't ready for me quite yet.

I sat my mother and sister down as soon as I got home and made them eat slice after slice of the dense, nutty bread. Something about the sight and taste of real food must have triggered my mother on some level, because that night she slipped out the door and finally planted the first seeds. It wasn't much, but it was enough.

Spring arrived overnight. It was a chilled, watery spring, lacking any splendor or miracles, but I couldn't have cared less. The winter was over.

Exhausted from expending that amount of energy, my mother lapsed back into inactivity. Once again, we were left to fend for ourselves, but now we had a way to survive. Now that spring had finally arrived, I knew there would be food in the forest, if only I could find it.

The next day, I travelled back to the temples, hoping the villagers had left some offerings in gratitude of the returning warmth. Halfway between Violet's temple and Alder's – no, _my_ temple, I reminded myself – a patch of dandelions caught my eye. I stooped to pick one, and when I looked up, I caught a glimpse of those same blue eyes watching me from a little ways away.

I ducked my head and rushed on, but hope was swelling in my chest. It was spring, the offering plates were full again and my sister would go to bed with a full belly. I could hunt and gather in the woods. We would not starve.

To this day, I can never shake the connection between this boy, Peeta Mellark, and the bread that gave me hope, and the dandelion that reminded me I was not doomed.

Dandel has found me. He nudges me impatiently, huffing, and I swing myself up onto his back. At my command, the branches overhead twine together, protecting us from the worst of the storm, but my cloak still flaps wetly against my calves as we turn and begin our journey towards home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The polytheistic religion in this fic isn't based off of any one religion, in case you were wondering. It's more like a conglomerate of ideas from various religions, myths and folklore.
> 
> If you have time, a review would be lovely. :)


	3. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: mentions of blood and sacrifice, possible triggers.

Katniss

_I could have helped._

_This is the thought that haunts me day and night for weeks as we skulk about the house, keeping ourselves occupied with menial tasks while we wait. It seems like waiting is all we can do. The dainty lace curtains at the cottage's windows, wedding gifts to my parents from Cinna and Portia, are crimped from hours upon hours of my mother's tight grip. She murmurs pleas and incantations almost without stop, spell-energy pulsing around her like a hive of riled wasps, but her efforts have been all but useless since our father went out of range. He's strayed too far, into some cursed place where Mother's strength-giving chants cannot reach. That was eight days ago. She still hasn't stopped trying to locate him again. But there's only so much you can do from inside a cottage, and Father's explicit instructions were to stay home._

_It's been three weeks to the day since we encountered the tracks. They were fresh, pressed deep into the crackling crust of snow. Father stepped past them, intent on the silver phoenix he was stalking – Mother needed more feathers for her tonics – but I stopped and crouched, brushing my fingers over the twisted prints. Cold prickled through my hands and I yanked them back, startled by the venomous aura. A more timid child might have shuddered and ran after their parent, giving it no more thought, but not me. Even at the age of eleven, I was stubborn and inquisitive. I dipped my hands back into the tracks, holding them there until the creeping pain proved too much and I had to lean back again._

_"Catkin," my father called, and I beckoned to him._

_"Look," I commanded, and he knelt next to me, a smile twisting up one side of his bearded mouth._

_"Well, what have you found?" he teased, pressing his thumb to my nose. But his smile hardened into a frown when he turned to examine the tracks. He measured them with the side of his hand, sweeping his fingers through the insidious cloud of gnawing cold. His frown deepened, lines sinking into the skin of his forehead. Then, all at once, a glint of horror came into his eyes._

_He snatched up my hands, barking, "Did you touch them? Katniss, did you touch them?"_

_I nodded, bewildered, and he yanked me to my feet. "Get to your mother, quickly. Take Dandelion. Stay inside the cottage, do not leave until I return. Do you understand?"_

_I tried to say no, I didn't understand, but he was already lifting me onto Dandel's back. "Ride," he urged, but I resisted a moment longer._

_"What is it? What left those tracks?"_

_He looked at me then, and I winced when his eyes met my own. They held none of the kindness and merriment I had come to expect from him. Instead, in his gaze I found dread._

_His fear fueled my own and I pressed myself to Dandel's warmth, knotting shaking fingers into his coarse fur._

_"I don't know, my princess," he replied at last, stroking a hand along my braid. "Something ancient. I hope it is not what I think."_

_He bade me go one last time and Dandel bolted, half-mad with instinctual fright. I turned, catching a glimpse of my father, now in the form of a shaggy, black dire wolf, giving chase to whatever creature had left those prints._

_I could have helped. I should have stayed with him._

_Instead I let Dandel take me home, where my mother listened to the story and rubbed my icy hands with fireflower salve._

_Soon after, my mother's swiftest doe arrived with a message: Father had been joined by his brother. They were tracking the beast towards the north. We were to stay home until the danger passed. And that was all. There were no declarations of love for Mother, no reassurances that everything would be all right. That, more than anything else, told me that something was very wrong._

_Now, it's been three weeks since we've gotten any news at all. We cook and eat and sleep and sigh. Mother strangles the curtains and whispers ineffective warding chants. Prim sews a tiny quilt for her rag doll and tucks her cold feet against my calves. We wait._

_It's late evening when my mother's scream sends me lurching to my feet, my heart throbbing in my throat. I dash to the windows, Prim at my heels, expecting Father to fall through the door, injured or half-conscious or worse. But he's not here. It's just our mother by the door, wailing into her hands._

_The curtains are parted wide open and I run to the window, staring breathlessly out into the woods. But Father isn't there, either. Instead, I find myself watching the forest die. The trees are wilting, the branches growing black, glistening fungus bubbling from every trunk and twig. The soft layer of snow is hardening into a brittle frost. Animals dash past the cottage, fleeing towards the meadows of the east._

_I know what it means, but I don't believe it. I can't. I won't._

_Prim grabs my sleeve, looking up at me with fearful eyes. "What's happening?" she whimpers. "What's wrong, Katniss?"_

_"Dead, dead, dead," our mother is moaning, rocking back and forth on the floor. "I can't feel him anymore, he's gone, he's dead, dead…"_

_Anger flashes within me, hot and quick. How could she say that in front of Prim? How could she give up already? My fist closes over one of her arms and I throw all of my strength into hauling her up from the floor._

_"No," I bark. "He isn't. He's still out there." Suddenly, it hits me like a hard strike to the gut: if Father is still alive but the forest is dying, it means he's hurt. It means he needs help._

_I'm already tearing my cloak down from its peg, jamming my feet into my boots and stringing my own small bow. Then I'm at the door, and my mother and sister are calling after me, but I don't stop._

_"Father's in trouble," I say. "Someone needs to help."_

_I close the door behind me and sprint into the woods. Dandel tries to follow me, but I push him back towards the cottage. I need him to stay and protect my mother and Prim._

_The forest is sick. Birds fall from the trees like overripe fruit, dead before they hit the ground. Animals stagger in circles, snarling and gnawing at their own paws, driven mad by the poisonous cloud of death that grows thicker by the minute. I run faster. The stitch in my side feels like someone is twisting a dagger into my ribs and the arrows in my quiver rattle in my ear with every step, but I push myself on. I have to find those tracks again. I have to find my father._

* * *

I jolt awake in a panic, clawing at whatever is binding my legs. It takes me a moment to realize that it's just the blankets, twisted around my body.

I wriggle free and perch on the edge of my bed, bracing my head on my palms. It's not the first time I've relived that particular memory in a dream, and I'm sure it won't be the last. Inevitably, it ends with the bedding tangled up with my limbs, evidence of my body's unconscious thrashing.

Prim must already be outside, milking her little spotted nanny goat. Otherwise she would have woken me at the first sign of a nightmare. I slip out of our bedroom, dragging a blanket along with me, and into the main room of the cabin. It's a kitchen and an entry room and a sitting room all in one, plain but cozy. With a loft to store possessions and a cellar to store food, our home totals about three and a half rooms, and that's if you're being generous. Certainly, it's a meager home in comparison to the grand villas that humans construct around their cities, or the merchant houses in the village, or even my own mother's cottage. But it's mine, and it serves me well enough. I don't need a lot of fancy rooms with different purposes, I just need a fire to warm me, a bed to sleep in and a table on which to dress my kills.

That, and privacy. A living space away from my mother's dull eyes and small, sad smiles. I lived in her cottage for three years after Father died before I couldn't stand it anymore. Prim drifts between us, now, sometimes living with Mother, sometimes with me, and always she takes her ugly, squash-yellow cat with her. Buttercup, she's named it. She found the mangy little beast when it was a feral kitten crawling with fleas, and since then it has barely left her side. Where Prim goes, Buttercup goes. Now, the cat is stretched out beside the cooling embers of last night's fire, opening its eyes only for a moment to give me a half-hearted growl.

I push open a window and lean out, craning my neck to see the rickety shed that houses Lady, the goat. Yes, there's Prim, perched on the three-legged milking stool, the early morning light turning her hair a pale shade of silver-gold. She sings a springtime song as she works. Beyond the shed, the forest is waking up. The trees groan and whisper and birds trill to one another. The long, low bellow of some enormous creature drifts through the quickly-evaporating mist.

We make our home in a place most speak of with a curse and an ominous nod, but we ourselves have nothing to fear. Just as there is little in the forest that poses a threat to me, there is even less that would ever dare touch my little sister and face my fury. Still, when Prim ventures out, she prefers to do so with her arm linked with either our mother's or my own.

Prim looks up, notices me hanging halfway out the window and gives me a cheerful little wave. I smile and duck back inside the house. I have plans for today, after all. No use sulking over nightmares when there are things to do.

* * *

 I stay long enough to eat breakfast with Prim – hot grain splashed with honey and goat milk – and then I collect my bow and game bag and change forms. Maybe it's because my last memory of my father is still on my mind, but when I shift I find myself in the form of a dire wolf, black-furred and scrawny. I consider changing again, but I still haven't regained all of my strength from yesterday, and I need to save my energy.

I crouch on my belly until Prim has lifted herself onto my back, sitting side-saddle. She cradles a basket of goat cheeses wrapped with dried herbs in her lap.

"To trade," she explains with a proud toss of her head. I give a wolfish grin of approval.

Dandel is off searching for food, replenishing his strength after this winter's hibernation, so Prim and I approach the village alone. She hops off my back at the gate, kisses the fur between my eyes and tells me she'll meet me back here in the afternoon. Then she skips away towards the temples, doubtless hoping to run into Rue, a demigoddess like herself, sister to Thresh. Once she's out of sight I turn and make my way along the perimeter of the village.

I'm not halfway to the bakery, cutting through empty garden plots and dodging puddles of slush and mud, when Gale comes trotting out from between two houses. His form matches my own, and he blinks slate-gray lupine eyes at me. My ears fold back in annoyance. Normally Gale's company would be welcome, but today I have a plan, and my plan doesn't exactly allow for his presence. I don't want to have to explain to him why I'm interested in the daily life of a mortal.

My irritation must amuse him, because he tips his head and gives a short huff before stepping forward in his usual form. A thick brown pelt swathes his shoulders and his boots are a few stitches away from falling apart completely. A roll of snare wire swings from his belt, along with a rather bony pheasant. He must have just returned from his travels. Like our fathers, Gale tends to wander during the winter.

"Catnip," he greets, just as if it hasn't been a whole season since we last saw each other.

I rear up onto my hind legs and change form, meeting his smile with a scowl. "Unless you got lost in the underworld and had to fight your way through five armies to get back home, I don't want to hear it."

He chuckles. "Oh, don't be so high and mighty."

I quirk an eyebrow and point to myself. "Goddess."

This draws another laugh from him, but I don't allow myself so much as a smile. Yet. I'm still upset with him.

Every autumn for six years, Gale has promised to come home and visit during the winter. And every year he returns at the start of spring, claiming he was simply too busy, too far away, too needed elsewhere to stop by and see his family once or twice during the cold months. It's not so much that I miss him. I mean, I do miss him – good hunting partners are hard to find, after all, and I count Gale as one of my closest and only friends – but I'm more concerned about his mother and siblings. Hazel worries herself sick whenever he's gone, and I know the kids miss him most of all. Rory, Vick and Posy – all demigods, and all fathered by different men. Hazel, being the goddess of home and family, possesses the unique privilege of multiple husbands and wives. You would think, with such a large family, Gale would remember to return home at least once over the winter months. But no. He unfailingly gives in to his wanderlust instead.

He steps closer, summoning up an expression that could almost be contrite. I wish, not for the first time, that I could read the emotions of other gods and goddesses as easily as I read those of mortals. At least then I would be able to tell if Gale genuinely feels guilty, or if he's just trying to appease me.

"I'm sorry," he says, reaching for my hands. I pull them back and fold my arms petulantly. He just shakes his head, like he was expecting that, and unbuttons the flap of his game bag. His hand dips inside, and when it withdraws a moment later something sways from his fingertips. My stomach twists as I realize what it is.

It's a black pebble about the length of my pinky, flat and worn smooth, as if he plucked it out of a river, and wrapped with hair-thin wire. The pendant hangs from a leather cord, and flanking it are barred kestrel feathers and two polished wolf claws. It's very obviously a gift, and not just that, but a gift he must have spent hours upon hours fashioning for me.

"Gale…" I start, but he says, "Here," and deftly fastens it around my neck. He lifts my braid out of the way and his fingers graze my throat, lingering on my skin far longer than strictly necessary. The stone comes to rest just below my collarbone.

"Gale," I try again.

"Katniss," he replies, and though I shifted out of my wolf form more than a minute ago I swear I can feel my hackles rising. Katniss, he said, not Catnip. He hasn't called me Katniss for years.

He takes a breath before going on, pinning me to the spot with that slate-gray gaze. I can still see the wolf when I look at him. "I was thinking, when I was away," he starts, leaning closer still. His hand hasn't moved from the juncture between my neck and shoulder. "I don't like being away from you for so long."

"So come back and visit once in a while," I mumble, shrugging off his hand, but he's not done.

"I want you to come with me next time. I'm sure your mother won't mind. We can be married by the midsummer festival, if you want."

"Married?" I echo, shock and confusion swirling within me. Where did this talk of marriage come from?

And yet, I am not as surprised as I could be. We are technically betrothed, after all. That is, everyone expects us to marry. I'm the goddess of hunting. He is the god of trapping. Our powers match, our gruff tempers match, even our appearances match: black hair, gray eyes and pale pebble-brown skin. A marriage between us makes sense, in a dry, logical kind of way.

But Gale and I have never talked about marrying. We haven't kissed or held hands or any of the things one would expect to come before marriage. He hasn't even courted me, for Fate's sake. The thought stirs a flash of anger within me. He hasn't so much as _attempted_ to court me, and now he suddenly expects me to marry him?

"You don't have to answer now," he's saying. "But think about it."

"Gale, you can't just expect –" I start, my voice low, but he cuts me off for the second time.

"Just think about it. Promise me?"

I'm about to say that I'm not promising anything, thank you very much, when he turns, shifts into a wolf mid-step and leaps over the village fence. I stand there, my boots sinking into the mud of a half-frozen garden bed, caught between indignation and bemusement. The necklace still rests around my neck, and I don't know whether I want to stroke it or fling it over the fence. I settle for pulling it off and stuffing it deep into my game bag. Maybe Gale will be disappointed if he sees I'm not wearing it, but that's his own fault. It was his talk of marrying that sent me into such a tailspin.

Mortals don't often marry within their own bloodlines, but it's quite common among gods. Mixing similar blood doesn't disfigure the resulting offspring as it would with humans; it makes us stronger. I suppose that's part of the reason our fathers betrothed us. It was just months before they were both killed, when I was eleven and Gale was barely fourteen, and it was far from formal. In fact, it was little more than an offhand exchange between our parents. Hawthorne commented that Gale's powers and mine would no doubt dovetail nicely, once we were older. My father agreed, and that was that. None of us considered it binding, but it felt like a promise. A promise that, apparently, Gale assumes we are going to keep.

I turn to the west, making my way towards the bakery once more, but my footsteps are slower now. Between my nightmare and the conversation with Gale, I can't help but think of that day, six years ago. The first time we ever went hunting together. Except, instead of hunting game as we usually do, we were hunting a mutt.

* * *

  _I've been on the trail for three days when Gale finds me. I turn around and there he is, pale and disheveled and just as tired as I am. He opens his mouth and I balk._

_"Don't," I warn._

_"They're dead, Katniss," he says. His voice and eyes are hollow, gutted like a rotting stump._

_I stalk forward and shove him, hard._

_"No!" My voice breaks hideously, but I keep yelling, scaring away every creature within a five-mile radius. "He's not dead! He's not! He's alive and he needs my help!"_

_Gale looks at the ground, scuffs one boot against the other and looks back up at me. "What if they're not, though?"_

_The answer comes out of my mouth before I even realize I've thought it. "Then we kill whatever killed them."_

_A slow, cheerless smile begins to stretch his lips. A cold light ignites in his eyes._

_One nod is all it takes to seal the pact. We will either save our fathers or make their killer pay._

_It's another week before we reach the end of the trail. By now we're far northwest, forging ahead into the ice-capped mountains, following the three sets of tracks along valleys and through passes. The prints themselves are barely there anymore. More than once we lose the trail, doubling back and wasting hours trying to pick it up again. And it doesn't help that the beast appears to be a shape-shifter. Every few miles the prints change. Now three clawed toes, like a bird, now a great, heavy paw, now nothing but the mammoth crescent-shaped indents left by a serpent the size of a tree._

_Gale is the one that spots the cave opening. Or, rather, what used to be a cave opening. Now, it's a hollow in the side of a mossy cliff, the stone cracked and listing, chunks of earth tumbling from the cluttered maw. We don't even need to approach the cave to know we can't enter. The collapsed roof is clearly visible, not three yards in. Shards of stone pepper the undergrowth around us, as if they were ejected from the tunnel at the moment of the collapse._

_I kneel to touch one of the shards, and that's when I notice it. Three sets of tracks lead into the ruined cavern. Only one set leaves again._

_Beside me, Gale tenses, exhaling a strangled sound and batting repeatedly at my arm. I tilt my head upwards, following his gaze, and stare at the shadowed cliff face. But there's nothing there. Nothing but moss and curling vines and the occasional trickle of snowmelt, and –_

Something moved.

_I whip out an arrow and fit it to the string of my bow, training it on the shadow that just slid two feet to the left. My heart is beating so hard I can feel my pulse in my fingertips, and my head is spinning, and suddenly I'm colder than I've ever been in my life. White frost crackles down the cliff, freezing the snowmelt into hard, glossy ridges. Snowflakes twirl through the air._

_The shadow convulses. Limbs slip from the body and grasp at brittle vines. There's a snap and a whistle, and Gale's arrow deflects off the mutt's flank – for I know that's what it is, now. Not merely a beast but a_ mutt _, a creature of death and darkness and disease. The smell alone could have told me that. Mildew and rotting flesh; cemetery roses and metallic mortal blood and cold, fresh earth. One lungful and I have to concentrate hard to keep from vomiting._

_All of the mutts were supposed to have been killed during our parents' battle to overthrow the old gods. Apparently, not all of them died._

_Its head snaps around abruptly and reveals a scaly, featureless face. The mouth splits open all the way up the cheeks, spilling a long, dribbling tongue. But it's not the tongue that sets a fire in my very marrow. It's the bow, still strung and loaded, dangling from the mutt's jaws._

_I give a scream of rage. The mutt screams back, the noise like metal against metal, and charges down the cliff._

* * *

 My fingers rub at the tip of the bow, absently, pressing into the spot worn smooth by the habit. Ever since the moment I saw it clamped in the mouth of the mutt, confirming once and for all that my father was dead, I've feared losing it. It's the only real piece of him I have left.

Weapons have memories. Maybe not in the conscious way that we do, but they remember a person's touch. They have loyalties. A weapon that knows you is more likely to hit its mark than one to whom you are a stranger. When the mutt swung its tail at me, maybe half an hour after it first charged at us, I had nothing to shield myself with but my own child-sized bow. The blow sent me crashing against the cliff wall, fracturing my arm and shattering my bow. And so I took up my father's. The mutt had spat it out not five minutes into the battle, the better to snap its teeth at us. When I snatched it up, the weapon was slick with cooling saliva. It hummed to life in my grasp as if eager to join the fight.

It was luck, really, that afforded us the victory. Luck, and the unfailing accuracy of a loyal bow. Had the battle gone on for a minute longer, our strength would have failed and the mutt would have ripped our heads from our spines.

Gale lured the mutt away from me with a flurry of jabs from his dagger, and in the moment it turned from me, I lined up the shot and let my arrow fly. The first shot I ever took with my father's bow pierced the soft tissue under the mutt's ribs. It stumbled and fell, driving the arrow deeper still, and Gale leapt in to sink his dagger into its throat.

What happened afterwards is a colorless blur. I remember the deep, persistent ache of my fractured arm. I remember cleaning the mutt's blood and saliva off of my father's bow with a scrap of fabric ripped from my tunic. But most clearly, I remember the look on Gale's face when we both simultaneously realized that we would need to take our father's powers before nature was permanently unbalanced. And I remember how much it hurt. My young body was already frostbitten and heavily battered from the long fight, and weak from the fortnight of ceaseless travel. It was not ready for the incursion of power I brought upon myself by taking up my father's role.

To this day I don't know how I got home after that, just that I staggered through the door expecting my mother to receive me with open arms, comforting me and tending to my injuries. Instead she was as a statue, unknowing and unfeeling, unaware that I was now a full-fledged goddess with powers that scalded my veins. It was Prim that thawed the frostbite and cleaned and bound my wounds, Prim that cuddled me and told me it would be all right when I was overwhelmed by the power I didn't know how to use.

I know how to use it now.

I've reached the bakery, I realize. I wonder how long I've been standing here in the shadows of the alley, staring past the apple tree I nearly died under.

The slightest sigh of a familiar mind pulls me out of my memories. I extend my consciousness just far enough to locate Peeta by the taste of his thoughts, keeping track of his location as he bustles about the bakery kitchen. I scan the building for more minds and find that he's the only one in the back room. Another young mind, most likely one of his brothers, hovers in the front of the shop, and his parents are somewhere in the upper levels. This is as good a chance as I'm going to get.

I shift forms again, this time taking on the guise of a girl younger than myself, with bones that protrude from pale, dull skin and yellowish hair that hangs in greasy clumps. I cloak my bow and quiver in a hasty concealing spell and turn my clothes dirty and ragged for extra measure. Then I begin to shuffle across the bakery's back yard, giving Peeta ample time to spot me out the window. I fight back a grin when I feel his initial flutter of curiosity, followed by a stab of pity. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him move to the window, but instead of looking at him I glance across the alley, hiking up my shoulders as if I'm anxious about something.

I've always been a terrible actor, but with my disguise it's fairly easy. I just need to stop my mouth from twitching. I can't smile or I'll ruin this whole thing.

Schooling my expression, I step up to the back door, raise a fist, let it fall, lift it again and knock. A few moments later, the door opens and Peeta looks down at what appears to be a small, cinder-smeared vagabond on his doorstep.

"Please," I half-whisper, adopting the sloppy inflections of the less fortunate class of people that frequents this village – those who make their living off of the forest, constantly moving, constantly trading, constantly hungry. The majority of my followers. "Couldja spare a bite?"

I watch him carefully. This is the moment when I find out what kind of person he is. He has been kind to me so far, of course, but there is a very large and very important difference between how one treats their gods, how one treats their equals, and how one treats a beggar. I've experienced the first two already. Now for the final test. Is he still as willing to feed a stranger as he was six years ago? Or has time hardened him?

I don't have to fake my nerves, now. I want so much to believe he is still as kind as he was as a child, and I am so afraid he won't be.

"Of course," he says, and the knot in my gut unravels all at once.

"Oh, thank'ee!" I breathe, remembering to keep up the act.

He smiles down at me, and it's strange being this far below him. I'm not especially tall in my normal form, and disguised as a child he towers over me, broad-shouldered and golden under his apron.

"Would you like to come in?" he offers, stepping back. "You can sit by the ovens while I get you something."

Well, I'm certainly not going to pass that up. But I act hesitant as I step through the doorway, peering around with wide, fearful eyes and slinking to the chair by the ovens with my fingers twisted together.

I'm having much too much fun with this.

I've never been especially fond of putting on a show to test the morals or integrity of mortals. That was always Effie's thing, or Portia's, or occasionally Haymitch's. Effie, especially, delights in putting on a disguise and asking people for a place to stay the night, then revealing herself in some flamboyant way to either applaud them for their generosity or scold them for their lack of manners. I always thought it was a bit silly. But now, I have to admit, it is a useful little trick.

A medley of mouthwatering scents rolls over me as I take in the clean, low-ceilinged kitchen. Fragrant breads sprinkled with herbs line the counter just to my right, and a tray of fluffy, expensive-looking pastries are cooling to my left, and – you know what, I really am hungry.

Peeta appears in front of my chair and lowers a plate onto my lap. The aura of his mind envelops me again, humming with concern, and I can't help the sigh that lifts my ribs. I murmur a soft "thank'ee," and look down at what he's given me. There's slice of sweet, dense bread, a wedge of cheese, a jumble of dried apple slices and even one perfect, layered frosting flower. I almost can't bring myself to eat it, it's so pretty. Suddenly, I don't know why I ever thought this was necessary. Of course Peeta would share his food with a beggar girl. Of course he would invite her in and give her a warm place to sit and even offer her a delicacy like a frosting flower. How could I have ever doubted that?

I resolve to eat the frosting flower last and dig into the apple slices instead.

I'm halfway through a swallow when Peeta says, "What's your name?"

Oh. I wasn't expecting that. Unprepared, I blurt the first thing that comes to mind, which is, "Posy."

"Hello, Posy. My name is Peeta."

I give a little smile and bite into the cheese.

He circles around the counter and continues to knead a lump of dough. I have to consciously stop myself from staring at the muscles of his arms, reminding myself that I have taken on the form of a ten-year-old and, as such, it is not appropriate to be lusting over him.

 _It isn't appropriate to be lusting over him anyway,_ I chide myself. _He's a mortal, and not even a Hunter. You're asking for something you shouldn't want in the first place._

He speaks up again just as I've worked up a scowl. "I don't suppose you know anyone named Kat? She's a Huntress that lives in the woods a little ways from here."

I freeze, afraid he's seen past my disguise, but he isn't giving off any signs of recognition. Only more curiosity, and a sort of hopeful expectation. I look up at him from under my eyelashes.

"Whydya wanna know?" I drawl around my bite of cheese, intentionally not answering his question.

He plops the dough down in a bowl and drapes a damp cloth over it, then turns to me again. "I met her yesterday and I…" Is it the heat of the ovens that's making him flush, or something else? "I was hoping to talk to her again. I thought you might know her."

 _He wants to talk to me._ The thought springs up unbidden, bright and hopeful as a little flower, and roots itself into my chest. _He liked being with me. He wants to see me again._

It's such a foreign prospect that for a moment I can do nothing but stare. Then I swallow, drop my gaze to the plate and try very hard not to smile. "Tall gal?" I guess.

"Uh, no, not really."

I pretend to think. "Braid? Bow?"

Peeta perks up, a little light flaring in his mind. "Yes – yes, she did have a braid. You know her?"

"Ah seen 'er. Don' know 'er." I stuff the last of the bread into my mouth to hide the smile that just won't go away.

"Do you know if she's still here? She said she travels a lot, and I don't know if… I don't know, maybe she left already."

I entertain the idea of claiming ignorance, just to see what he'll do. But I can feel the worry eating away at his insides, and I don't want to be the cause of it.

I finish the bread and pluck the icing flower off of the plate before saying, "She still 'ere, Ah think."

Relief blooms in his mind, followed by a billow of anticipation, and I can't do it, I can't just sit here and absorb his emotions anymore. My own stomach is clenching with nerves and excitement and something else I can't name. I have to leave before I shift into my normal form and reveal myself to him, or worse.

I jump from the chair as soon as he turns back to his baking, padding silently to the door and slipping out. The hinges squeak as I close it behind me and I feel Peeta's spark of confusion as he realizes I've left, but I don't wait around for him to follow me. I duck around the corner, cast off my disguise, and run.

I'm nearly a mile from the bakery, still smiling like an idiot, when I realize what I'm doing and stop short. I can't do this. I can't let myself hope like this. I know better. Whatever this is, it can only end badly. Peeta can't have meant anything by what he said. He only talked to me once, after all, and he didn't even know who I really was. He may be curious about "Kat", but that's all.

I duck my head and bring my hands up to my cheeks, embarrassment tightening around my chest. How ridiculous I must seem, dressing up in a disguise to talk to a mortal boy and then running from his kitchen like a startled groosling. And not an hour after my conversation with Gale, too.

Suddenly, the strap of my game bag seems to cut into my shoulder, as if the necklace hidden deep within is threaded with a boulder, not a pebble.

The wind picks up with my agitation, sending bare branches rattling together. A few townspeople flip up their coat collars and shove their hands in their pockets, grumbling. I have to get out of here. The village fence, sturdy and twice as tall as a man, seems to hem me in. I need the woods. I need deep glades and the slow, steady tree-souls and fleet-footed deer bounding through the bushes.

Feathers spill down my form and I surge into the sky, skimming a burst of wind on sinewy wings. I climb and then tuck my wings in close to my body, dropping into a swooping dive. As I plunge into the clattering forest canopy, I promise myself that until I pick up Prim I will think of nothing but the smell of thawing earth and the tiny flashes of prey-movement in the undergrowth. But no matter how hard I try, no matter how many forms I take, exhausting myself further with each change, I can't stop my thoughts from returning to the hopeful glint in Peeta's eyes when he asked after me.

* * *

 Peeta

She was so skinny, I wish she had stayed and eaten more. But the moment my back was turned she fled back the way she had come. I don't know why I expected anything else; forest folk are distrustful by nature – understandably, considering what they do to survive – and Posy seemed anxious since the moment I opened the door. Still, I had hoped to send her off with something. A stale heel of bread from two days ago, perhaps, or the spongy slivers left over from evening the top of a cake. Something my mother wouldn't miss.

At least, I think as I approach the ring of temples at the far north of the village, she stayed long enough to tell me about Kat.

I veer to the right and climb the steps of the general temple, faltering for a moment when my knee gives a painful crunch. A copper-haired priestess glides forward to help me, but I lift a hand with a smile. There are far more important things for her to be doing than helping me get up a couple of stairs.

The priestess's eyebrows scrunch together in concern, but she turns back to her task. Her spotless white shift and the vibrant red sash slung over her shoulder identify her as part of the Avox cult – those who cut out their tongues and pledge themselves to a life of devout silence. Their devotion to the gods, they "say," is such that they have no need for mortal speech. It's a highly respected, if somewhat grisly practice. Rumors swarm like moths every time they recruit a new follower. Some say the severed tongues are stuffed with herbs, rubbed with oils and burned on ritual fires in sacrifice; some say they're dried and preserved; some say they're roasted on coals and consumed by the other Avoxes at a sacred feast.

I swallow, suddenly acutely aware of my own tongue, and limp past the priestess with my head bowed.

It's quite crowded at the temples today. The spring festival is nearly upon us. Not only is the entire village scrambling to prepare, but migrant traders are flocking to the town, eager to trade away what they procured over the winter. I manage to find a free space at the base of the central altar, where I kneel with some difficulty and rattle off the cursory prayers to all the elite gods that share this temple. Johanna, Effie, Haymitch, Cinna, Portia, Hazel. And then, because I'm in too much of a hurry to stop by every temple individually, I add Gale, Boggs, Thresh, Finnick and Violet. Then I'm off again. I've rushed through my prayers, I know, but I hope the gods will forgive me. Many of them have sweethearts of their own. Surely they'll understand why I'm rushing away.

I realize, shouldering my way out of the crowded general temple, that I just thought of Katniss as my sweetheart. It's an awfully risky presumption, thinking like that. If she takes offence… Well, there are more than a few cautionary tales detailing what my punishment might be. But I can't help it. It's hard to stop thinking a certain way when you've done it for more than ten years.

I suppose that's why I find myself so intrigued by Kat. With skin the soft olive of a mourning dove's breast and a long rope of dark hair, she is the very image of the goddess herself. Even her name brings Katniss to mind – which, I suppose, was most likely intentional. Many parents borrow syllables from the names of gods to christen their children, and Kat looked to be around the same age as the goddess. Perhaps her parents chose her name in honor of Alder and Violet's new child.

Granted, dusky skin and black hair aren't a great rarity 'round these parts, nor are Huntresses. What drew me to Kat was the forest in her. The scent of pine and rain on her skin, the cold starlight in her gaze, the low trill of her voice. Two minutes into the conversation and I could already tell she was a true lady of the woods.

I traverse the courtyard hoping to find her in Katniss's temple. Instead, I find a commotion. The wool blanket has been torn from the doorway, around which a small crowd has already gathered. Inside, someone is hollering, his voice rising and falling with the feverish rhythm of a chant. The words themselves are unintelligible at this distance, but the very sound lifts the hairs on the back of my neck. I can't pinpoint what it is, but something about that voice is innately _wrong_.

I stumble on indecisive feet, first one way, then another, caught between curiosity and fear. My decision is made for me when I realize: whatever is happening, it must be connected to Katniss somehow. Otherwise, it wouldn't be taking place in her temple. What if something is truly wrong? What kind of follower would I be to turn tail and run when my goddess is threatened? And what if Kat is in there, too?

I shoulder my way through the throng.

The interior of the temple is less congested than the doorstep. Most of the people inside have pressed themselves to the walls, forming a restless ring around the fire pit and altar. Fragrant incense smoke mixes with smoke from the fire pit and swirls in thick eddies above our heads. And Priest Seneca stands before the fire, a ritual dagger in each hand and the sleeves of his tunic rolled up to his shoulders. The firelight glints off patches of knotted, waxy scar tissue that stretch from his right wrist up and around his arm.

"The goddess has already tested me!" he yells to the crowd, raising his right arm so that the scars are clearly visible. "Years ago, I asked the Great Huntress what she desired of me, and she gave me an answer." His hair, usually neatly slicked back with oil, has started to fall into his face. Strands dangle over his fever-bright eyes as he says, "Blood. The wolves that tore this flesh from me were a sign of Katniss's true will. As I saw my blood spill from my wounds, I saw the goddess's answer."

People draw back and begin to whisper, but they don't dare raise their voices. Not against a priest, and certainly not against a priest with daggers in his grasp and a poisonous gleam in his eye. They frown and glance at one another.

"Yes!" he insists. "It is time, my brothers and sisters. Time to return to the old ways. The Great Huntress is yet young. She was born long after the old gods were defeated, and the old practices with them. Never has she tasted human blood. Well, I say, that changes today!"

The murmurs of dissent begin to shift tone. People start nodding along with his words.

"We will give her what she desires! She shall feast on the blood of a mortal and she shall favor us for it! Her strength is our strength!"

One cheer sets off a smattering of others, and disgust tightens in my throat. People are agreeing with this? This is wrong. Seneca is wrong. Katniss wouldn't demand sacrifice.

Or would she?

I peer over the heads of the crowd, searching for a long, black braid, but I can't locate Kat. Relief courses through me.

Seneca is still going strong, though I missed the last few moments of his speech. "… let her drink!" he's saying, and another, stronger cheer goes up. The crowd is getting caught up in his twisted enthusiasm. People that would never think of hurting a fly are now calling for blood.

It's Seneca. He's doing something to affect us – I can feel it too. There's dull tug in the back of my mind telling me that he's right, that the gods won't rest until they feed, that someone must die.

"Who will volunteer?" Seneca challenges. He strides a pace to the left, sweeping every object off the offering table, and my eyes land on a lump of cloth that had previously been hidden from my sight. The lump stirs slightly and the unnatural bloodlust drains from me within seconds. It's Priest Aurelius. I can't tell how badly injured he is, but he's obviously unconscious.

"Who will volunteer?" Seneca roars again. "Who will sacrifice themselves to feed the goddess?"

He paces around the fire pit, knives brandished triumphantly, but no one speaks. Whatever spell he's weaving around us, it isn't quite strong enough to drive us to our own deaths.

He stops pacing just in front of me, close enough to touch. I try to withdraw, but the press of bodies behind me is too thick to pass through.

"No," he says, almost thoughtfully. "I suppose no one will. The cowardice of man is great."

His head twists, slowly, scanning the ring of onlookers. When his gaze reaches me he stops.

 _Oh, please, Great Huntress, no,_ I think, but it's too late. Seneca's hand shoots forward and clamps onto my arm. He yanks me forward with a strength I wouldn't have expected from his wiry build. A bitter, smoky smell rolls off him in waves and a cough rolls up my throat, turning my pleas into a garbled mess of sounds.

"Katniss!" he howls. "Great Huntress! Goddess of the Forest and all who live and hunt within it! Hear me! Accept this tribute! Drink this mortal blood and with it wash away our transgressions!"

I'm shoved toward the altar and forced onto my knees. A sharp pain shoots through my bad leg at the impact, but I barely register it. I can feel my heartbeat everywhere, and the rapid throb rushes in my ears, nearly drowning out the fervent cries of the crowd. I do not want to die. Oh, stars, _I don't want to die._

But if I do, I think as Seneca twists one hand into my hair and slams my face onto the cold stone of the offering table – if I do, at least I will have died for the goddess I've always loved. At least I have that.

I still offer up one last desperate prayer. _Katniss, please protect me._

The last thing I see before I close my eyes is the flash of firelight reflecting off of one long, curved blade.


	4. Chapter Three

Katniss

My wings barely carry me as far as the nearest branch before they give out. I don't land on the bough so much as I slam into it, my talons scrabbling at the flaking bark and my heart trembling in the cage of my ribs, beating quick as hummingbird wings. I've well and truly expended all of my energy, now. It was foolish of me to take on so many different forms in such a short period of time, especially after my encounter with the curse yesterday, but my mind and body both were too restless to settle on just one. No matter what form I took, I couldn't escape the building storm inside me. Memories of my father, Gale's proposition, those blue eyes that won't leave my thoughts… No paws nor hooves nor wings can outrun them, it seems.

And now, while the late afternoon sun slants through the forest, I huddle in the upper branches of an ancient fir in the form of a mockingjay, exhausted and cloud-damp.

And on top of it all, that damned priest Seneca is trying to get my attention again. I block out his prayers as usual, wondering if I could bed down right here. Press my small body against the trunk, tuck my beak under one wing and let the silent tree-song lull me to sleep. But Prim will be expecting me to meet her at the village gate soon, and I will not leave her standing alone on the road, wondering where I am.

Reluctantly, I hop to the edge of the branch and open my aching wings. Seneca's voice prods at me again, more insistently, and again I ignore it. But then another prayer joins his. And then another. And then a deep, itching shiver sweeps through my body from head to tail. Something is wrong. The villagers' prayers overlap in my mind, their voices washing over each other, some frantic, some afraid, some confused, but all of them carrying the same tones of urgency and concern.

 _Forest fire,_ I guess, my heart giving a lurch, but I just as quickly dismiss the idea – I would have felt such a fire in my marrow long before any mortal caught wind of it. I fling my consciousness outward, delving into the land, looking through the keen eyes of passing falcons and listening through the ears of foxes and martens. The trees pick up on my apprehension and shiver uneasily. Save for that, I detect nothing amiss. I withdraw back into my own body, puzzled.

But the villagers continue to call out to me with their thoughts, growing more alarmed by the moment.

_Goddess, hear us –!_

_– must have gone mad!_

_He's taken down the ritual knives!_

_– don't know what he means to do, but, m'lady, you've got to come quickly. No good can come of this…_

_– talking about the old ways – oh, Huntress, you wouldn't, would you?_

My blood starts to boil in my veins, burning away my fatigue and leaving something hot and caustic in its place.

Though the lives of animals are offered to the gods routinely, human sacrifice is a practice that ended when the reign of the old gods did. My parents' generation banned it for a reason. To take a human life is one thing, but to consume them… To imbibe their very life-force to strengthen your own… The act is unforgivable. Snow himself used the method to secure his dark regime, before he and the other old gods were overthrown and banished to the northern wastelands, too weak and injured to ever fully reform. It's said that Snow used to demand so much mortal blood that his breath reeked of it.

I know what Seneca is attempting, now, so it comes as no surprise when I feel a tug on my mind, drawing me to the temple. He's summoning me.

Well. If Seneca wants me to make an appearance, an appearance he shall have.

Aching muscles forgotten, I shoot from the fir and ascend above the treetops in two powerful strokes, then twist and plummet towards the earth again.

 _Katniss!_ Seneca yowls in my mind, the summons reverberating through my bones. _Great Huntress!_

I latch onto a thick pool of shadows with my mind, picturing where I need to be until the darkness begins to tremble and leap forth like troubled waters. The wind skims over my feathers, wrapping me in a cocoon of cold, slick air.

_Goddess of the Forest and all who live and hunt within it! Hear me!_

I slice through space, swift as an arrow, and the shadows engulf me. For a moment I'm enveloped in sighing darkness, and then I burst out the other side, emerging with a flutter of wings in the smoky rafters of my temple just in time for Seneca to shout, "Accept this tribute! Drink this mortal blood and with it wash away our transgressions!"

I take in the scene in the space of a heartbeat: the anxious crowd, a bloodlust-spell pulsing above them in whipping tendrils; Priest Aurelius, an unmoving lump behind the altar; Seneca, his sleeves rolled up to his shoulders to bare pale, sinewy arms, a curved ritual blade gleaming in one hand and –

And the other hand twisted cruelly in a head of messy gold curls.

Dark spots sweep over my vision and something like a scream rings in my ears. Then I'm dropping like a stone, flesh reforming mid-air, my fingers closing over the shaft of an arrow before they've even lost their feathers. The ritual blade shatters with a sound like splintering china at the same time that my feet hit the ground. The second knife flies to my hand at a twitch of my fingers, the hilt smacking into my palm obediently.

The onlookers cry out, stumbling back in unison, but Seneca's mouth splits in a wide smile. "Katniss," he greets, giving no indication of caring about or even noticing the arrow that passed within a hair's breadth of his face on its way to destroy the ritual blade. "Great Huntress and Lady of the Woods. What an honor it is to stand in your presence."

I don't miss the way his gaze drags along my figure, taking in the queenly dress of feathers that hugs the shape of my body. It's one of Cinna's designs; a coal black gown he stitched for me on my last birthday, to wear on special occasions, and he promised me I needed never put it on with my own hands – it would appear when required.

Now, embers crunch under my feet as I step through the fire pit, little flames catching at the hem and rushing up through the folds of fabric and feathers. The fire wraps around my legs, follows the lines of the skirt, runs down the tapered, wing-like sleeves and finally sweeps over the bodice and into the deep hood. The obsidian feathers smolder with twisting, flickering bits of orange and gold and blue that spread and shift by the second, wreathing me in smoke and light.

A few people in the crowd catch their breath at the sight, most out of awe, some out of concern, but I pay it no mind. Fire can do no more harm to one of Cinna's designs than it can do to me.

Seneca is mid-way through a deep, elaborate bow, but I barely see it. My vision has narrowed to his left hand, which is still tangled in Peeta's hair, forcing his face into the surface of the altar. Excitement sparks from the priest, sour and tainted with an edge of something that isn't quite madness, and beside him, Peeta is giving off wave after wave of terrified pleas. His fear swirls around me with the flames, breathing fresh fury into my skin.

"Let go," I say, and the ring of mortals shrinks back even further at the steel in my voice.

Seneca's grin widens, like the jaws of a wolf splitting open to pant. Long, pale fingers unclench and slip away, leaving Peeta shuddering against the altar. The spectators give off an answering shimmer of pity, but it's eclipsed almost immediately by a slew of other, harder emotions – primarily, gratitude that it's him kneeling before Seneca, and not them. That, and the lingering bloodlust, which I disperse with a muttered incantation of my own. My spell leaves the dusty tang of wild mint in the air, and the village people begin to blink and shake themselves, sniffing. Shame collects on their shoulders like pebbles, one by one, as they realize what Seneca's spell made them do just moments ago. What it made them want.

Meanwhile, the priest himself is bowing again, shuffling back a few steps to leave the way clear to Peeta. "He is yours, Huntress," he murmurs. "A gift. Drink."

Even as my lips part to censure Seneca, something stirs in the deepest corners of my mind. Peeta's so close to the temple fire, and to my flaming attire, that sweat beads like dewdrops on his exposed skin. The heat picks up his scent and carries it to the rafters in billows, suffusing the air around him with hints of cinnamon and dill. His pulse throbs visibly in a vein at his neck. I hesitate, the words knotting in my throat. It's forbidden, and I would never, but… Some small part of me wants to. Some small but growing part of me craves nothing more than to prick that vein with the blade in my hand and touch my lips to the hot, coppery liquid. I wonder what his life would taste like. If it would be bright and metallic as the blood itself, or as soft and sweet as a frosting flower.

He's so still. Knuckles white, hands clenched onto the corner of the altar, back bowed and head lowered in submission. An ache of longing pangs through my gut, softening the backs of my knees. The smoky air buzzes with tension over the ring of onlookers, pulled taut like a bowstring, and though the bloodlust spell is gone their urging pokes at my sides. _Go on. Go on. What are you waiting for?_

And then, through the prayer-babble, Peeta's thought rings out quiet but clear above the rest. _I'm ready._ He's still trembling, but his fingers flex once against the altar and then slip into his lap. _It's okay. I'm ready._

He takes a long breath, as if steadying himself, and all at once the hunger is gone. And the rage is back.

I turn my gaze to Seneca, staring silently until my eyes burn with the light of a blood moon and the smile falters and dies on his lips. Only when he begins to stammer and make vague gestures in the air do I speak.

"What is the meaning of this?" I ask, my voice soft in the way that inspires more fear than screaming.

Dismay curdles in the townspeople's blood, sending them shivering back against the walls, but Seneca gives off only a small trill of fear, along with a larger dose of annoyance. And yet none of that shows in his voice when he speaks.

"As I said, Great Huntress, he is a gift. He is young and strong. His blood will give you strength in turn."

"Maybe you don't know," I say, an acidic edge creeping into my tone, "But human sacrifice has been forbidden since the fall of the old gods."

"The old gods have been defeated and banished, that is true, but they live still. Why should the old practices not live with them?"

I give up speaking softly and whirl on him, jabbing at the air with the ritual blade. The fire behind me leaps, throwing shadows up the walls, and the torches flare from their sconces. "Those practices were abandoned for a reason!"

He shrinks back at my shout, trepidation fizzing in the space around him, and my lips curl up with grim satisfaction. Good. If I can frighten him into penance, so much the better.

He switches tactics. "For years I have sought your council," he bites out, his self-assured demeanor slipping another notch, "And yet you ignore my prayers. Why?"

"Frankly, you repulse me."

Someone in the crowd gives a nervous, breathy giggle at this, and Seneca's left eyelid twitches. "You – you –" he sputters, his face going the shade of overripe tomatoes, "For years I have been nothing if not devoted to you – I made all the right offerings, I prayed daily, I –" My legs stir under my skirt, rousing the little flames along the hem, and he stumbles back as I steadily advance on him. "I've done nothing wrong!"

He trips over Priest Aurelius's legs and tumbles to the ground in a heap, panting. I come to a stop an inch from his feet and look down at him, peering at him with narrowed eyes from within my hood. "You understand nothing," I say. The ritual knife twirls between my fingers, and Seneca's eyes reflect the flash of firelight. Then I lift my voice so that everyone, even those huddled outside the door, will understand me. "Seneca Crane, I no longer require your service. Your title is revoked. You may leave." I lift an arm, my hand trailing in the direction of the door, and a cold gust of wind eagerly clears a path.

"No, _you_ don't understand," he snarls, jumping up. "I can help you –"

"I said you may leave."

"But, Goddess–"

"Get out."

The anger that has been bubbling in him, thick and hot as magma, now erupts in a passionate surge. "I knew it was a mistake to choose you! I thought since you were young you would see things clearly, but no, no, you – you're a fool just like the rest of them – just like your father!"

The blood in my veins becomes steel. The temple fire and every torch on the walls dies with a sputter, plunging the temple into blue shadows, as the mutt's scream echoes in my ears. When I speak, I don't recognize my own voice.

"I was going to be lenient with you." My feet slip across the floor with a whisper before leaving it entirely, and the flames in my gown flare and whirl around me. "I would have shown you mercy."

The terror on Seneca's face begins to drip and run, like a charcoal sketch in the rain, and though I don't move, everything else moves around me. Power shoots through me in tremors, scorching the thing behind my ribs and tingling in my hands, but I can see nothing but my father's bow, dangling from the mutt's jaws, glistening with ropes of saliva.

Then everything is spinning and nothing is solid and screams tear at my mind like claws. A tempest blasts around me, picking up anything smaller than a breadbox and flinging it. In a few disjointed moments of relative clarity I register glass vials bursting, wood splintering with terrible groans, the stone altar cracking in two as if cleaved by the axe of Johanna herself. And that my hand is still clenched around the grip of the ritual knife. And that it's poised to strike Seneca directly in his ridiculously bearded throat.

I adjust my grip and tense, preparing to deliver the blow, when my eyes light on something that jolts me back to full clarity with painful swiftness. Two blue eyes, wide and half-shielded by uplifted arms.

My chest heaves as my arm twitches, pulling up short. Didn't I come here to prevent the spilling of mortal blood, not cause it? And if my followers witnessed me slaughter a priest – no, an ex-priest – what kind of message would they take away from that? Here I am saying that human sacrifice is forbidden one moment, and ready to slice a throat the next. I don't plan on drinking Seneca, of course – the very thought sends revulsion creeping up my throat – but witnessing a bloody death would scare the mortals more than necessary. And Peeta. I don't want Peeta to see that.

Still, I can't let Seneca go unpunished.

The blade comes flashing down in a smooth arc, darting quick as a minnow over the cloud-pale flesh of Seneca's cheek. When I lower my hand, blood is already welling up in the three cuts just below his right cheekbone: one vertical, two slashed across the first at odd angles. The mark of the outcast.

"I banish you," I tell him, my voice low and still rough with power, "To the wastelands. If you ever stray so much as a mile from your appointed bounds – and I _will_ know – I will not hesitate to deliver you to the fate you deserve."

The knife hits the wooden floorboards with a cheery _ping!_ and bounces away, leaving a splatter of scarlet where it landed. The tempest calms.

I watch Seneca scramble past me, catch his foot on a pelt, fall and spring up again before stumbling through the door and down the steps. I watch the frightened crowd split to give him a wide berth. I don't stop watching until a flock of my birds chases him across the temple grounds and into the village with sharp jabs from their beaks. Only when he vanishes around a corner do I allow myself to turn away.

Peeta hasn't moved from his spot between the fire and altar. His eyes are glued on me, and probably have been for some time, and suddenly I'm very glad of the deep hood that hides my face. In the dim lighting, all he's likely to see is the curve of a cheekbone or the glint of an eye. He won't recognize me, not by face nor voice. The voice I use on pieces of scum like Seneca is worlds different from the voice I take on while posing as a mortal.

His eyes drop to the floor almost as soon as I face him, his head inclining respectfully. "M'lady," he whispers. Then his eyes flicker up again. "Thank you."

I make some sort of soft noise in the back of my throat, like a mother cat, and before I quite know what I'm doing I've stepped forward and pulled him against me. Kneeling as he is, his face presses into my bodice, and his arms clamp around my waist. My first thought is, thank Fate my dress has mostly burned itself out by now, or his clothes would be aflame as well. My second thought is, he's shaking. Again, still, who knows. Have I really scared him that badly? Have I driven away the only mortal who hasn't yet run from me screaming? This sweet boy who shares his lunch with strangers and who understands that my darkness was born out of grief, not spite… Of course he fears me now. Look what I did to the temple after one little remark about my father. Guilt swells in my lungs, cold and bitter as ocean brine. What am I doing, embracing him after the destruction I just caused? He probably wants to be as far away from me as possible, not squashed against me.

But fear isn't what's emanating from him in rich, ardent waves. He doesn't pull away from me, and he doesn't seem to want to. Instead he gives a gentle sigh, his breath stirring the feathers at my belly, and sags against me. He's all but snuggled into me, as Prim would snuggle into me on harsh winter nights, and all the time I'm thinking, _Don't you know how dangerous I am? Don't you know how much I could hurt you?_

Somehow, my fingers have found their way into his hair, soothing away the pain Seneca must have inflicted when he grabbed him. Abashed, I gently remove myself from his grip.

"Are you all right?" I ask, one hand going to tug my hood farther forward and rub automatically at the tip of my bow.

Peeta nods solemnly and attempts to stand, but halfway up he grimaces and clutches at his knee. Oh, stars – his _knee_. How long was he kneeling there? I catch at his arm before he can fall, allowing him to use me as leverage to ease himself up.

I lift my other hand, palm up, and sweep it over the temple in a twisting gesture. Almost at once, the ruined space begins to repair itself. Buckled timbers straighten and mend with great, crinkling snaps as puddles of shattered glass coalesce into jars and vials, their contents flowing back into them before they jump to their shelves. A dull crack echoes through the space as the altar repairs itself. The sconces along the walls straighten and the torches re-light themselves. The scattered remnants of the temple fire slither back into the fire pit and continue crackling calmly, as if nothing had ever happened. Even the woolen blanket finds its way back to its place over the door.

I let my hand fall to my side with a satisfied nod just as Peeta takes his own hand off my other arm.

"Well, that was easy," he says mildly, looking at me sideways as if he's not quite sure he's allowed to talk to me.

I pluck at the bowstring by my shoulder. "You pick up a good deal of home repair spells growing up as Hazel's niece."

He gives a laugh, and then a ragged sigh. "Thank you," he repeats.

I reply almost before the words are out of his mouth. "There's nothing to thank me for. Seneca was attempting to reenact a forbidden practice and I stopped the bastard."

An unsure, "Here, here!" startles me slightly. I had forgotten about the other townspeople.

"Why are you still here?" I ask them. "The sun's nearly down. Go home."

They give a collective little jump and go bustling away through the door, all the while pausing to look back at me. And then –

"Oh!" I gasp. "I have to go!"

_Prim! She's still waiting for me at the village gate! How could I have forgotten her?_

"Wait," Peeta says, though I'm already nearly at the door. He hovers by the fire, looking a little lost. "I…"

"I have to leave," I repeat, and then I'm gone, flying down the creaking wooden steps and flitting between temples. I'm lightheaded, I realize. Everything is spinning again. Now that the last of the adrenaline has worn off, I'm slipping back into exhaustion at a dangerous rate. I don't know what secret reserves of energy I accessed in the temple, but they've been sucked dry by now. I have to get home before I collapse on the road.

And yet.

I stop, my head swinging back and forth between the village, where lanterns are being lit in windows, and my temple. A few stragglers are still trickling out from behind the blanket, but Peeta isn't among them.

Prim is waiting. The fact bombards me every moment, like a territorial blue jay. _Prim is waiting Prim is waiting Prim is waiting._ But Peeta is there all alone, too, with no one to comfort him but a few passersby and a groggy priest with a swelling bump on his temple. This is my fault. All of it. If I had just killed Seneca in the first place instead of sending my wolves after him, he wouldn't have gotten such a gruesome idea in his head. He wouldn't have gotten the chance to thoroughly traumatize one of my most faithful followers. This is my fault. I can't just leave.

I summon a fox from the shadows to run and tell Prim I'm on my way. And then I turn and drag myself back towards my temple. My dress melts from me in a stream of glossy feathers, vanishing off to wherever it goes when I'm not wearing it, and I'm left in this morning's much-patched tunic.

I trip on a stone in the path and nearly fall on my face before catching myself.

This is going to be a long night.

* * *

 

Peeta

I could dance, I think, if it weren't for the splitting pain in my bad knee. I could dance, and sit very still at the same time, and laugh and probably cry, too. Except, I'm too shell shocked to do any of those things, so I just limp needlessly from one side of the temple to the other, keeping an eye on Priest Aurelius as he makes sure everything is in order and waves away my offers of help.

"I'm just sorry I wasn't awake to help _you,_ " he mumbles in that grandfatherly way of his, running his fingertips along the bottles and jars on one shelf. He takes down a jar of pine nuts, opens it and offers me a handful. "Eat. You look like you need it."

I accept the bit of food, shaking my head yet again. "I had plenty of help." I swallow the handful of pine nuts all at once and brush my hands off on the hem of my shirt.

He inclines his head slightly. "Of course. A thousand thanks to the Great Huntress for that. But I imagine it couldn't have been a very… pleasant experience nonetheless. Would you like to talk about it?"

I hesitate, then say, "No, but thank you."

I don't think I can put my state of mind into words just yet. Everything is all jumbled up in my head, gray and smudged like too many shades of paint mixed together.

Priest Aurelius just nods and says, "As you wish. Just remember, there's no shame in being frightened. What you went through was a frightening experience. You can always come to me if you'd like to discuss it."

I thank him, lower myself to the ground by the fire pit, for lack of anything better to do, and stretch my knee out in front of me, wincing. Yes, I was afraid. I was afraid from the time Seneca's gaze landed on me to the moment he passed through the door, the freshly-cut mark on his cheek streaming red. I was afraid of pain and I was afraid of death, but therein lies the strange thing: I don't think I would have minded dying. Not by her hand, at least. There are much worse ways to go than with the lips of a goddess suckling at your throat, much less a goddess you've been smitten with since childhood. And seeing her there, cloaked in night-dark feathers and aglow with hundreds of tiny tongues of flame… How could I not give her my life, if it would strengthen her like the mad priest said? How could I not do that for her?

No, I would not have minded dying by her hand. Even when her eyes flooded with crimson light, visible even in the shadows of her hood, and her feet left the ground and her voice became as terrible as it was beautiful, I would have gladly laid down my beating heart to feed her. And that's what scared me most.

And after… After, when she turned to me with outstretched hands and pulled me to her… Maybe it was too bold, but I couldn't help but clutch at her, terror and relief and childlike devotion swirling in me in equal measures.

She smelled like mint and like the forest after a rainstorm.

"Peeta."

I twist suddenly, sending another twinge of pain through my knee, to find Kat in the doorway. I silently berate myself for not thinking of her sooner. "Kat." I push myself to my feet.

"I h-heard about what happened – I was just on my way to –" She sways, one hand shooting out to clutch at the doorframe, and concern floods through me, sharpening my self-annoyance. I should have gone out looking for her as soon as Katniss left. Instead I stayed here and wore a track in the floor, stuck in my own thoughts. _Useless,_ I scold myself, starting forward.

I reach for her elbow and then stop, unsure if she would be comfortable with an unsolicited touch. We barely know each other. But she looks so drained that I instinctively want to put out my arms to steady her. Bluish bruises smudge the delicate skin under her eyes, which are dull with what can only be exhaustion, and her entire frame slumps against the wall.

"Kat, what's wrong? Are you all right?"

She mumbles something, one hand tugging at her already messy braid.

"What?"

"Prim's waiting," she repeats. "Prim's waiting at the gate. She's waiting for me."

Then she turns, unsteadily, and begins to make her way back down the steps with stiff, halting movements. I stare after her for a moment, baffled, and then hurry to catch up. Her steps may be clumsy and lurching, but she moves with a purpose, doggedly pursuing the dusty shadows of the west.

"Too much energy," she's whispering to herself, "I spent too much…"

"Kat, wait, please," I say, attempting to place myself in front of her to halt her march. "What happened?"

She wobbles like a butterfly, eyes somewhere over the rooftops, as she says, "Thought I could handle it by myself… stupid…" Then, all at once, her legs crumple underneath her.

I slip my arms around her shoulders, meaning only to stop her fall, but her slight weight proves too much for my knee and we both go toppling to the ice-crusted ground. Her skull knocks into my mouth and my elbow jabs into her side, but she doesn't so much as grunt. She just blinks at me with dark, feathery lashes and whispers, "Prim… I have to get to Prim."

By the time I've wrestled us into an upright position, her head lolls against my shoulder and there's so little strength in her limbs she can barely hold herself up. Alarmed, I brace myself against a fence post and swing her up into my arms. Her eyelids flutter, but other than that she is as limp and pliable as a ragdoll. My heartbeat thuds in my temples. Is she sick? Did she eat something poisonous? Is she hurt?

Her sister. She said her sister was a healer. Surely she can fix this, whatever it is.

I heft Kat in my arms and limp quickly towards the western village gate, haunted all the way by the lingering scent of wild mint.

* * *

She's already running to us before I even notice she's there – a tiny, silver girl with a fox in her arms. She comes to a halt inches from us, wild-eyed.

"Oh, stars – oh, is she all right? People are saying she–"

Kat's hand shoots out and closes around the younger girl's wrist. The fox takes to washing her fingers with its tongue as she pulls her sister down and whispers something to her. The girl – Prim, I think Kat said – draws back, her pale gold hair shimmering in the light of the rising moon. Her coloring is fairer even than Madge, the daughter of the Head of the Village Council, but apart from that she could be my sister. She even has eyes of my father: the same deep, true blue that he passed down to me. It's unusual to find such an eye color in woods-dwelling folk. And yet, it is easy to see her sister in her. They share the same face structure, something I would have noticed even if I wasn't itching to sketch both of them.

"All right," she says evenly, though her eyes hold a hint of confusion. "…Kat." She worries her bottom lip between her teeth, frowning as if picking apart a troublesome riddle, then looks up at me abruptly. "What's wrong with her?"

I shake my head, feeling utterly useless. "I don't know. She was talking about spending too much energy, I think, and then she just… Collapsed." Suddenly, it strikes me. "Has she eaten today?"

The tail end of winter is a hard time for everyone, but no one more so than those who live alone in the forest. Too often I've heard the tales: families discovered rotting in the spring, dead since midwinter, their arms still wrapped around empty bellies. Children growing up stunted because their fathers couldn't bring in enough food in the cold months. Often, the young ones will come begging to the village, like Posy, but that isn't always an option. I should have known that Kat would be suffering from hunger like the rest of us. Oh, why didn't I get her some food as soon as I saw her swaying?

But Prim nods and says, "She did just this morning, I'm sure of it."

"Then what's –?" I begin to ask, and she cuts me off with a shrill, "I don't know! I've never seen her like this!"

She stares down at her sister between her fingers, sniffling.

I take a breath. It's no use scaring her by letting her see how shaken I am. With Kat unable to stand, much less give instructions, I have to act as the elder sibling here. I have to be calm. "All right," I say, and then clear my throat when it comes out cracked. "That's all right. We'll figure it out, okay?"

Her head bobs as she swipes at a tear I pretend not to see.

"I think the best thing we can do for her right now is to get her home. Do you agree, Healer?"

Prim gives a watery smile at the title. "Yes. But I can't carry her home by myself."

"I can carry her." To prove my point, I give a little bounce, pulling Kat more securely to my chest. I must have jostled her, because she gives a little moan and pushes her face into my shoulder before going still again.

Prim examines me for a moment. At last she says, "I'm Primrose Everdeen, by the way."

"Peeta Mellark."

She nods. "Follow me."

Prim keeps close to me even as she leads me through the ever-darkening wood. Or, more likely, she's keeping close to her sister. One pale, slender hand flits over Kat near-constantly, pushing back strands of hair or feeling the heat of her forehead or the drum of her pulse. Once, she mutters something like, "Where's Dandel when you need 'im?" but when I send her an inquiring glance she just shakes her head.

For such a little thing, she certainly is strong. At one point, halfway between a patch of slippery moss and a puddle I blunder straight through in the dark, one little hand takes mine and she begins pulling me along over roots and hills, occasionally repeating, "Come on!"

I bite my lip so I don't cry out at the swelling pain in my leg. She must notice my limp, but she doesn't take the time to comment. Bushes catch at my legs and a penetrating chill numbs my fingers and nose, and several times I nearly drop the girl in my arms. The trees groan and whisper all around us, though there's very little wind, as if they're alive and watching us like in the old stories.

Just when I think Prim must be a wood nymph, leading me into the heart of the forest to wander aimlessly for the rest of my life, we round a small, jagged outcrop of rock and there, ringed by a tangle of dark firs, is a little log house.

"You're staying the night, aren't you?" Prim frets, shoving open the door.

"Well, I can't very well walk back home now," I joke weakly, though it isn't really a joke. I have no idea of the way, and besides, I feel as though I might collapse as well if I don't get off my knee.

Prim pulls me into the house. It smells of sweet, earthy herbs and of wood smoke, but that's all I really process. I just stumble along behind her long enough to set Kat down on a quilt-swathed bed, my arms burning from bearing her weight for so long. The next thing I know I'm being pointed towards a rocking chair by the fire place – oh, Fate be praised, a _chair!_ – and I fall into it, with no intention of moving anytime soon.


End file.
